I READ somewhere that language was a set of tools to communicate ideas from one person to another.

It was a very simple definition and an analogy ripe for further exploitation.

A hammer, for instance, may be a perfect instrument for knocking nails in.

For the basic operation an ordinary hammer would suit aptly, but if one wanted to hammer a nail in 'poetically,' one would need an

elaborate affair, perhaps an ornately-decorated implement with a jewel encrusted head might be required.

When Macbeth says: 'Life's but a walking

shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour on stage and then is heard no more,' he is using a very elaborate hammer to knock in his nail.

Using the basic tool kit he could have said: 'You get born, make a lot of fuss and then you die' - but then Shakespeare would not have made it big as a poet and playwright.

When people make ridiculous statements such as the well-known 'economical with the truth,' made to a Government select committee

investigation into a political scandal we have all now forgotten, what they seem to be doing is knocking a nail in with something

inappropriate for such purposes in the vain hope that no-one listening will realise they are knocking the nail in.

Jargon language, when used by such people as senior police officers who seem to be unable to speak nowadays without using such odd expressions as 'pro-active, impact upon, and targeting' often displays that they have

discarded the simple hammer and picked up an expensive and complicated instrument, more often than not made in America, that does the job less efficiently than the cheap one they have just thrown away.

But there is another use of language which defies classification.

As if the toolbox has been replaced by a circus clown's booby-trapped prop cupboard -

resembling language but completely unable to perform any useful function whatsoever.

On my desk, this week landed a report from Bradford Council's Personnel and development sub-committee.

Item number 23 is titled: 'Year 2000 compliance - Unison claim for additional payments for directorate based computer staff.'

The first paragraph of the report reads: "Immediately prior to, and during adjournments of a meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee for Employees the Sub-Committee considered the management side response prior to the commencement and during an adjournment of a Joint Consultative Committee (JCC) meeting, arising from a failure to agree over additional payments for Directorate-based computer staff in relation to Year 2000 Compliance work."

Although this statement is obviously English, my native language, I have absolutely no idea what it means. And I doubt whether anyone else has - including the person who produced

it.

l Speaking of confusion, I see our wonderful judges are still arguing, at mine and your expense, whether Vlad the Impaler should

be able to avoid extradition to Transylvania.

Despite the fact that his favourite hobby was spiking the population on sharp poles, raping virgins and drinking their blood, he was at the time the titular head of the state and therefore should remain immune from prosecution.

The High Court ruling is being studied closely by Messrs. Herod, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot who may then decide to live in England to take advantage of our wonderful legal system which decides that mass

murderers should be able to live out a

peaceful and happy retirement on the South coast.

The views expressed in this column and the writer's alone and not those of Wharfedale Newspapers. To comment on anything in the paper, please write to Wharfedale Newspapers, 9 Orchard Gate, Otley, LS21 3NX

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.