The Bishop on Less than Words Can Say

Richard Mitchell, professor of English at Glassboro State College, bemoans the state of clear, effective English, its education, and its consequences for society, in a tirade which reveals an appalling understanding of society, and an only slightly better grasp of clear, effective English.

The Bishop is being pat, of course, if only to demonstrate said luminary’s own command of clear, effective (and, of course, remarkably clever) English. Mitchell was writing in 1979, a time at which human behaviour was believed to have more to do with jeans than genes. No wonder, then, that he posits that things would have been much better if only the Inuit had less than fifty-two words for snow. In any event, Mitchell’s diatribe begins carefully, and cleverly, enough, and it is worth breezing over the first three chapters, if only for his salient summarisation of why the French aristocracy would never let its collective tongue near ‘a barbarous babble like Russian’. Unfortunately, it soon takes a sharp right into volumes of ire rarely achievable in print (or heard outside of a Nuremburg Rally). And, while the barbs directed at grammatically challenged educational-grant seekers and other lesser life forms no doubt help let off a little steam, the whole thing is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel made of fish.

But hey―purchased from a second-hand bookstore it only cost a dollar; which, at a not unreasonable average rate of inflation over the last twenty-six years, is about right for Mitchell’s two cents worth.