{"id":611,"date":"2012-07-17T13:50:45","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T01:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=611"},"modified":"2012-07-17T16:36:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T04:36:10","slug":"blah-blah-something-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=611","title":{"rendered":"Blah blah something important"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=610\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-610\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-610\" title=\"Dog\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Dog-244x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"244\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Dog-244x300.jpg 244w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Dog.jpg 341w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 244px) 100vw, 244px\" \/><\/a>For several years, I had a cartoon pinned to the cork board beside my desk.<\/p>\n<p>It showed a dog listening to his master.\u00a0 From the dog\u2019s point of view, the man appeared to be saying: \u2018Blah blah blah <em>biscuit. <\/em>\u00a0Blah blah blah <em>walkies.<\/em>\u00a0 Blah blah <em>good boy!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n<p>I am often reminded of this cartoon when I hear politicians holding forth.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Blah blah blah <em>better outcomes<\/em>.\u00a0 Blah blah blah blah <em>sustainable economic benefits<\/em>.\u00a0 Blah blah blah <em>protection of the most vulnerable members of society.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In his 1946 essay \u2018Politics and the English Language\u2019, George Orwell suggested that language which is misused and badly presented obfuscates thinking and reasoning.\u00a0 Without clear language we can\u2019t hope for clear thinking.\u00a0 He particularly disliked the habit that many politicians have of stringing together several impressive-sounding-but-meaningless phrases rather than constructing a simple sentence with a strong verb and a concrete noun.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, I heard one politician saying: \u2018I think that I can safely say without fear of contradiction that we are now at a point in time when it is critically essential that the appropriate information is captured in an appropriate and timely manner.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>I have no idea what she meant.\u00a0 What is more worrying, I don\u2019t think she did either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For several years, I had a cartoon pinned to the cork board beside my desk. It showed a dog listening to his master.\u00a0 From the dog\u2019s point of view, the man appeared to be saying: \u2018Blah blah blah biscuit. \u00a0Blah &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=611\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}