Less Than Words Can Say

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Less Than Words Can Say
by Richard Mitchell

``The wittiest, the most brilliant and, probably the most penetrating discussion now available of our growing American illiteracy. This book must be read at once...'' -- Clifton Fadiman
``If English is saved, he will be one of its saviors.'' -- Edwin Newman
``...by far the most entertaining, intelligent, and above all, the most important work on the deplorable state of American English...'' -- Thomas H. Middleton
In Less Than Words Can Say, Richard Mitchell lets rip the most devastating expose to date of our rampant misuse of English. A Don Quixote -- Savonarola might be more apt -- of language, he wages war on its perverters, from teachers and deans to politicians and bureaucrats, whose consistently overblown prose offers us inanity in the guise of wisdom.
Mitchell's cantankerous crusade indicts government agency ``chairs'' for the intimidating and obfuscating ``legalese'' of their profession, obsequious grantseekers who supplicate foundations in time-honored cant, and aspiring academics who speak in the Divine Passive.
According to Mitchell, this bureaucratic jargon is turning us into a nation of baffled, inept, frustrated, and -- ultimately -- violent people, and the public schools are to blame. For the past thirty-five years, they have taught children to socialize rather than to read, write, and cipher -- the only disciplines that foster clear language and logical thought. Mitchell's alarming conclusion is that our schools are turning out illiterates who will never manage their lives -- because, lacking ``the power of language,'' they can't think.
Richard Mitchell is a professor of English at Glassboro State College and editor and publisher of the controversial monthly publication The Underground Grammarian. His newest book is The Graves of Academe.
A colleague sent me a questionnaire. It was about my goals in teaching, and it asked me to assign values to a number of beautiful and inspiring goals. I was told that the goals were pretty widely shared by professors all around the country.
Many years earlier I had returned a similar questionnaire, because the man who sent it had promised, in writing, to ``analize'' my ``input.'' That seemed appropriate, so I put it in. But he didn't do as he had promised, and I had lost all interest in questionnaires.
This one intrigued me, however, because it was lofty. It spoke of a basic appreciation of the liberal arts, a critical evaluation of society, emotional development, creative capacities, students' self-understanding, moral character, interpersonal relations and group participation, and general insight into the knowledge of a discipline. Unexceptionable goals, every one. Yet it seemed to me, on reflection, that they were none of my damned business. It seemed possible, even likely, that some of those things might flow from the study of language and literature, which is my damned business, but they also might not. Some very well-read people lack moral character and show no creative capacities at all, to say nothing of self-understanding or a basic appreciation of the liberal arts. So, instead of answering the questionnaire, I paid attention to its language; and I began by asking myself how ``interpersonal relations'' were different from ``relations.'' Surely, I thought, our relations with domestic animals and edible plants were not at issue here; why specify them as ``interpersonal''? And how else can we ``participate'' but in groups? I couldn't answer.
I asked further how a ``basic'' appreciation was to be distinguished from some other kind of appreciation. I recalled that some of my colleagues were in the business of teaching appreciation. It seemed all too possible that they would have specialized their labors, some of them teaching elementary appreciation and others intermediate appreciation, leaving to the most exalted members of the department the senior seminars in advanced appreciation, but even that didn't help with basic appreciation. It made about as much sense as blue appreciation.
As I mulled this over, my eye fell on the same word in the covering letter, which said, ``We would appreciate having you respond to these items.'' Would they, could they, ``basically appreciate'' having me respond to these items? Yes, I think they could. And what is the appropriate response to an item? Would it be a basic response?
Suddenly I couldn't understand anything. I noticed, as though for the first time, that the covering letter promised ``to complete the goals and objectives aspect of the report.'' What is a goals aspect? An objectives aspect? How do you complete an aspect? How seriously could I take a mere aspect, when my mind was beguiled by the possibility of a basic aspect? Even of a basic goals and basic objectives basic aspect?
After years of fussing about the pathetic, baffled language of students, I realized that it was not in their labored writings that bad language dwelt. This, this inane gabble, this was bad language. Evil language. Here was a man taking the public money for the work