Words, Words, Words

THERE is much fuzzy writing in prose. Indeed, such writing can be a weapon of deception, leading to betrayal of the unfortunate readers, when language is abused by the miscreants. I'd rather that the mouth be silent and the pen be quiet if the outcome of writing belies the true motives and feelings of the issuer.

While orators like the late British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, or even former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamd, could boast of well-crafted and inspiring speeches and writings (especially useful in wartime to psyche up the soldiers on the battle front), there are also many speakers and writers who are often guilty of "fuzzy" prose, whether deliberate or unintentional. And it is not just among Malaysians. William Zinsser, in an essay titled "Simplicity" in The Short Prose Reader, stated that "Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unneccesary words, circular construction, pompous frill and meaningless jargon."

Zinsser asked: "Who knows what the average businessman is trying to say in the average business letter? What member of an insurance or medical plan can decipher the brochure that tells him what his costs and benefits are? What father or mother can put together a child's toy -- on Christmas Eve or any other eve -- from the instructions on the box?"

He added that the national tendency was "to inflate and thereby sound important".

All these views sound familiar, fourteen years ago in America or now -- just as true in Malaysia a decade ago and at present. Things don't vary much from country to country through the decades -- people indulge in "fuzzy" prose to obscure and mislead, unwittingly or with ill intent, to deceive or profiteer, or put the reader at a disadvantage.

Indeed, all of us adults at one time or another would have dealt with the documents drafted by lawyers or insurance specialists, and half the time the "real substance" would have been buried in mountainous jargon and verbosity!

In his message to writers to "simplify, simplify", Zinsser noted of (Henry David) Thoreau, famed for his philosophical On Walden Pond.

"Open Walden to any page and you will find a man saying in a plain and orderly way what is on his mind.

'I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert.'

This is poetry prose as close to any standard of excellence as can be -- by its simplicity of expression, yet showing great clarity and exactness of thoughts.

I shall now contrast the above with some local performances.

From "To do or die ... of short memories and word spinning" by this writer first published in malaysiakini.com (Feb 19, 2001), an extract, viz:

"Wordsmiths are a plenty in Malaysia. However, another commodity -- people with constant memories -- is in short supply. Many wordsmiths here churn out words they don't mean, or they later qualify with mind-boggling caveats, or most wonderful of all, give a word the opposite meaning!

"A now famous example: for more than two decades the federal government had been paying royalties amounting to five percent of oil output revenues from Terengganu to the state government. It was a happy state of affairs. Until 2000, when the state government changed hands from Barisan Nasional to federal opposition party PAS.

With a lightning strike of memory recall, BN leaders said all along the payments to Terengganu, including a partial payment of RM432 million in 2000, were wang ehsan (goodwill payments).(The gifts were deemed 'discretionary' and the BN stopped the payments from henceforth.)

"Remember the great one about 'My decision to resign (from a minister's post) is final and irrevocable'?

When something is irrevocable, there is no turning back, even when one is facing the muzzle of a gun.

But of course, some ingenious puppet-master with a sleigh of hand turns the 'irrevocable' decision to resign to merely 'an expression of wish to resign'. A few weeks later, following an orchestration of appeals by supporters, party members and community leaders and plain citizens, the 'decision to resign' is reversed, and lucky Malaysians are stuck with a fine performer of a minister who continues to take us on joy rides."

I have reproduced a substantial portion of the said article to show the linguistic gymnastics some people, especially politicians, make use of prose communication to to mislead their audience. That's an abuse of a medium of communication, and the receivers would be justified in feeling a deep sense of regret and betrayal.

We move on to a more recent happening. Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohd Khir Toyo had to rush back from an interrupted trade mission to the United States early March following highly publicised media reports of the Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam Agriculture Park environs being denuded of its forests and greenery as a result of wanton land clearing and tree felling by some of the thirty-five developers undertaking works for housing and other development. After a few hours of inspection, he declared without the batting of an eyelid: "Everything is okay!" He insisted that no park land had been encroached into by the developers.

The following day Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi accompanied by Khir Toyo and the minister in charge of agriculture, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, flew over the park site for a bird's eye view from a helicopter. Clearly Pak Lah was shocked and angry over the devastated green lands surrounding the Agriculture Park, when he could not see a single tree standing or even a single blade of grass. Things were clearly not okay from the big boss' point of view, and the menteri besar was ordered to take swift action against the developers for damaging the park's environs.

Two perspectives of one issue here demonstrate that Khir Toyo had been evading the issue so clear for all other eyes who care to see -- yet he dared to mouth the definitive words "Everything is okay" twenty-hours prior to the helicopter ride.

To Pak Lah, his words given so often over the one year-plus at the leadership helm of this nation -- "Let's walk the talk" -- would be put to the test, again and again, but will his Cabinet miniters and other subordinates walk the same path with him? That's the more than RM64 million question. The rakyat wait with bated breath.