William Watson: Poilievre and Anglo-Saxon words
How refreshing it is for a politician to be interested in words and able to discuss rather than simply fling them
One of the more bizarre news stories of 2022 concerned Conservative leadership candidate (as he then was) Pierre Poilievre’s preference for Anglo-Saxon words, which he expressed in a podcast exchange with Jordan Peterson in May.
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This being the 21st century, the story immediately morphed into how Poilievre must have been trying to dog-whistle to white people that he’s one of them. Actually, just by looking at him, you can tell he’s white — though it was a podcast so I suppose some listeners might not have known.
Of course, the assumption that appealing to Anglo-Saxon-ness is a good way to build support among all white people is flat-out wrong. A lot of non-Anglo-Saxon white people — we Gaels, for instance, a subset of the Celts — never liked the Anglo-Saxons much and in fact our ancestors spent a good part of their time fighting them. Statistics Canada doesn’t publish data on this aspect of identity but my guess is that most white Canadians aren’t Anglo-Saxon.
But Poilievre wasn’t whistling at dogs or racists or anybody else. He was talking about words and expressing his opinion on a point of style. How refreshing it is for a politician to be interested in words and able to discuss rather than simply fling them — though Poilievre is no slouch at flinging them, either.
Anyone who does think about words understood immediately that Poilievre was channelling Winston Churchill: “Short words are best, and old words when short are the best of all.” And further: “My method is simple. I like to use Anglo-Saxon words with the least number of syllables.”
These days referring to Churchill, even indirectly, is a little brave. For two decades from 1940 on he may have been the world’s foremost figure. He was on most people’s list for person of the 20th century (though Time magazine put Einstein, Ghandi and FDR ahead of him). Holding off Nazism while the United States dithered and the Soviet Union actually dallied with Hitler was regarded by those who lived through it as a seminal contribution to civilization. Existential even, to use a non-Anglo-Saxon word that’s popular these days.
What now seems to weigh more in our evaluation, however, is that Churchill was a proud British imperialist, didn’t want to give up India and had Edwardian views on relations between people of different colours. Yes, those are all negatives. But seeing to it that the people responsible for Auschwitz had only a 12-year, not 1,000-year, reich should count for quite a bit in the moral balance, you might think.
Whatever your opinion of Churchill the man or the politician, however, there’s no doubt he knew his way around the English language. He made his living largely through writing, after all. And he won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1953 — though that was mainly a vote of thanks for, as John Kennedy put it 10 years later, in a line he probably lifted from the journalist Edward R. Murrow, having “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”
Churchill’s preference for old words with few syllables, preferably of Anglo-Saxon origin, is not nativism or antipathy to “foreign” words. Short words in most cases will have the greatest impact. Lincoln had the same view. So did the committee that wrote the King James version of the Bible. What’s at issue is directness, economy and the rhythm of sentences. Those are all questions of taste, of course. And language that is not so plain and direct can also have its effect. But, as George Eliot put it, “The finest language is mostly made up of simple, unimposing words.”
Direct works. On May 13, 1940, three days after Germany invaded France and the Low Countries and he became prime minister, Churchill told the Commons: “I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ ” Two words have more than one syllable. It’s hard to avoid “government,” since that’s what he had just formed. He might have said “naught” rather than “nothing.” But “nothing” is plain enough.
The rest of the statement is just as direct and almost as monosyllabic: “You ask, what is our policy? I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us.… You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” That leaves little doubt of what he meant, does it?
I hope in 2023 there will be no occasions as dramatic as May 1940. But if there are, I hope the people called on to speak during them will speak as plainly. And, of course, in humdrum everyday politics it would be far better for all of us if people used simple words that said what they meant. Not the least advantage of doing so is that they themselves might learn what, if anything, they meant.
Financial Post
