Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 28 March 2009

My husband shook his head in a sorrowful, dismissive fashion and said: ‘You’ve lived a very sheltered life.’ All I had done was to ask what cascading meant in the sense that the Local Government Association wanted to ban.

issue 28 March 2009

My husband shook his head in a sorrowful, dismissive fashion and said: ‘You’ve lived a very sheltered life.’ All I had done was to ask what cascading meant in the sense that the Local Government Association wanted to ban.

My husband shook his head in a sorrowful, dismissive fashion and said: ‘You’ve lived a very sheltered life.’ All I had done was to ask what cascading meant in the sense that the Local Government Association wanted to ban. Anyone would have thought I’d asked him the meaning of rimming or some such word with which if one lacked familiarity it would be better not to make an acquaintance.

I had been perusing the LGA’s list of 200 items of jargon we should do without. Some are dreary management-speak: blue-skies thinking, challenge (meaning ‘problem’), or synergies.

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