Dick Cavett, of the New York Times has written a witty and insightful blog about one of the things both of our guest speakers have mentioned: The enigmatical language which officials in technical professions use to befuddle common, undistinguished Americans. (Get it?)
Cavett addresses his complaints to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. Cavett calls it “copspeak” and the general rule is “never use a shorter word when a longer one will do.” He gripes that Petraeus’ “ongoing processes of substantial increases in personnel” could have been simply stated as “more soldiers.”
It’s good to see someone pointing these things out, because I’m sure many people don’t understand that the reason Petraeus and others use this type of language is not just to sound smarter than us, but also to keep us from grasping what is actually happening in Iraq. I’m glad Cavett called them out for this, and I hope it does some good.
