John Prescott all upset that he don't speak too good

It's hard to maintain levels of literacy and articulation in this modern world of ours. Literally everything is being slang-warped and abbreviated, to the point where Westmonster fears an entire new generation of whippersnappers will grow up to carry out their wedding vows in Textspeak and deliver funeral eulogies peppered with OMGs and LOLs.

Ah, who are we kidding? Lack of grammar and basic English is nothing new. Just look at Geoff Boycott. Or - more presciently, seeing as we try our best to be a politics site - just take a peek at poor old John Prescott. In a GMTV appearance this morning, Prezza - once branded the Minister of Gobbledegook by his peers - admitted that the way he done go about talking ain't too proper-like.

Prescott bemoaned the fact that he had never been able to master the intricacies of the language as well as his colleagues, harking back to his earlier circumstances as the root cause:

'I think it is something that I have not mastered - language or grammar - and that has caused problems for me.
I think it goes back to my education. Secondary modern school education was not the greatest. There were a lot of people who did learn grammar and got on with it but I didn't.

It is often used as part of the characterisation and easy to write up, [that I] "mangle language or have gone 12 rounds with the English language".

'If you take my speech on "one member, one vote", I have never been able to watch it. Once when I saw it on the news, I could see the language was not right and I felt a little ashamed of it.'

You can watch the interview here.

Written by C J Davies on 27 May 2008 4:51 PM. Permalink