Butchering the Bard
Warning: Some readers may find the details below offensive, as they involve dismemberment.
This is a story of a murder, the torture and despatch of our beloved language. Millions mourn.
The guilty have been charged: They are two senior government officials caught red-handed, their fingers on the smoking keyboard.
The Jakarta Post published the gore, so repulsive that one veteran wordsmith was moved to tears, commenting while heading to sick leave:
‘After decades of having to read abstruse public statements, daft media releases and trite speeches, this sickens me. I originally thought the jargon so far out it must be a spoof, maybe a left-over from a script by the late John Clarke aka Fred Dagg.
‘But the autopsy shows it’s real. God help us if this is to become acceptable.’
Exhibit One is an INFORIAL which one witness asserted was a new drug to prevent verbal constipation. However a statutory declaration shows this is also an article containing an advertisement, with content ‘made’ by The Jakarta Post Business Department.
The defendants claim that’s not true - comparing it with False Fact, as defined by a former US president. Through their lawyers, they allege ChatGPT is responsible.
In a supporting affidavit, they say the Post once employed many fine English-literate staff to ensure copy was clean and of a professional standard. The level in this crime scene is too low to trip up the most pedestrian hack, so the blame has to lie with a robot.
Members of the jury: You must read the evidence yourselves, but first some background.
The indictment from the Crown Prosecutor's HQ located in Mark Twain House reads: ‘Establishing collaboration with Australia in the immigration sector’. It recounts an alleged meeting between Indonesian Immigration official Pak S and Ms F from Australian Immigration. (Their names have been redacted to preserve their presumed innocence0.
They are doubtless fine public servants contributing much - though not to the language.
He said: ‘We followed up on several things, such as shaping a technical group regarding the development of technological information in order to facilitate the exchange of information on architectural systems and immigration for these two countries.’
She then added: ‘We respond with positivity toward the proposal as well as measures to contain foreigners who are not beneficial to Indonesia in a sense where we push the border forward to protect the borders of the two countries. This is to ensure a minimization of illegal migrations.’
Pak S compounded the offence by going further:‘We learned a lot from our last visit in Australia last month, which covered the database of foreigners, lists of data alerts to prevent or catch, and other various awakenings that we learned.’
The Prosecution confirmed the suspect had his ‘awakenings’ without the need to take a second dose of INFORIAL so was fit enough to stand trial.
The learned judge refused to accept a plea to reject the charges because the defendants were only doing their duty to obfuscate, as required under public service rules.
‘The Nuremberg Defence has no place in a court which respects the rights of words to say what they mean,’ she said while dismissing a bid to have the charge reduced to wordslaughter.
‘I am not convinced the events under question were spontaneous .. there are elements of premeditation present.’
Bail was allowed on the grounds that the defendants report to a library and under supervision read a chapter a day of the Oxford Guide to Plain English while awaiting trial. They were warned not to attend any Zoom or face-to-face meetings, deliver reports or show PowerPoint presentations.
One anonymous observer commented: ‘To be fair - and I shouldn’t because this involves generously-paid bureaucrats with tertiary qualifications given the responsibility of communicating with the public - the evidence should be handy for English teachers who aren’t too squeamish.
‘Now they don’t need to compose imaginary examples of violence on language for their students to analyse - here’s a ready-made example of a real assault.’
In the upcoming by-election, both major parties have pledged to hold a Royal Commission with particular reference to the maltreatment of prose.
A spokesperson for the minister said: ‘This is a repugnant development that demands strong and immediate action, so we are planning to consider a review in the not-too-distant future given sufficient resources and a time frame which allows input from a wide range of stakeholders responding to the concerns of voters overall, subject to funds being made available in the upcoming budget.’
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