A fit of the giggles
Anyone who knows me well would not expect me to have a fit of the giggles.
With some people I can react quite badly when they make thoughtless mistakes – one such was the presenter on BBC Breakfast recently when he talked about ‘less’ people. Now if you were Jonathan Swift (assuming that he were still alive) writing about Lemuel Gulliver in Lilliput, then you might have some sympathy; but the thoughtless remark from a so-called journalist and presenter beggars belief.
I think the miscreant concerned meant to say ‘fewer’ people since he was making reference to a numerically reduced number of people. Alas, instead he reduced all those involved to Lilliputian size.
Nevertheless, that was not what gave me the fit of giggles; instead it was a supposedly worthy report, upon which I was asked to comment. Within the report the writer, a lawyer by trade I believe, had made a number of wonderful grammatical mistakes, but two stand out. I quote:
“When the government changed in 2004, the consultants were immediately terminated.”
As one of the consultants to whom the writer refers, I can report that I remain in very rude health and don’t feel in the slightest bit terminated.
His second mistake which reduced me to further fits of giggles was:
“According to the ICR, the project contracted foreign English-speaking consultants who could not communicate directly with 90 percent of the non-English speaking Sri Lankan population.”
Aha! So how did they communicate with the other 10% of the non-English speaking Sri Lankan population? Sign language? Dutch perhaps? Or just shouted in English a little louder?
Or perhaps he meant to say that the foreign, English speaking (no need for a hyphen) consultants could not communicate with the 90% of the Sri Lankan population who do not speak English.
I won’t argue the toss with the writer about the niceties of consulting in a foreign land because, when you read the rest of the report, you soon see that he has a closed mind. However, there is a very simple lesson here; if you insist on writing a report which you want to be taken seriously, then at least get someone to check your grammar. Otherwise you may reduce the reader to fits of giggles.