Thanks, dug. He started it.

In his second Today interview last week, he said that he didn't regret using the word swamping because the dictionary definition "is quite straightforward, and it is exactly the same as overwhelm or overburden, which is to be swamped with work, or overwhelmed with work". As someone said to me today, "why not just use overwhelm then, if it has exactly the same meaning?" And if people object, why not just say "OK, I mean overhwelm"? It seems that he is deliberately trying to establish a classically structuralist opposition between "people who chat" and "people I talk to".

Note also his use of the word "liberati" in the first interview.

PS I wonder how Blunkett would feel about the fact that this same person explained how she understood this way of using words by saying "it's the kind of thing Haider does in Austria"...

Billy, I'm loving your gloves-off approach to Blunkett :-)

Here's the leader from the Guardian, last Friday, 26 April 2002:

Chattering classes RIP - The home secretary needs your help

During the course of his "swamping" interview on Radio 4 yesterday, David Blunkett coined a new phrase to describe the sort of soggy liberal who feels squeamish when the home secretary switches into his sub-Richard Littlejohn mode. Veering at the last second from using the tired cliche, "the chattering classes", he instead dismissed them as "people who chat to each other".

It is, we confess, not snappy. But it is a brave stab at coming up with a new, and much needed, piece of terminology. Once upon a time this group was known dismissively as "Hampstead intellectuals", until property prices in NW3 became a barrier for anyone whose salary was not at least 2,000 times their IQ. "Guardian readers" served tolerably well for a number of years, especially with any one of a number of well-loved prefixes. These included a) brown-sandal-wearing, b) muesli-eating, c) Citroen-driving, d) dungaree-wearing, e) tree-hugging and f) wispy-bearded. Bonus points could be scored for the additional use of one or more of: black, disabled, lesbian, save the whale, pinko, bicycling or social worker.

After a while, N1 replaced NW3. These Islingtonians no longer ate muesli while imparting their dripping wet opinions, but grazed instead on sun-dried tomatoes, often drizzled with balsamic vinegar, preferably in trendy wine bars. Given the prime minister's own roots in Islington, this stereotype was not without its own risks. Some felt more comfortable with the generic formula, "North London bien-pensants".

The chattering classes had a good run for their money, as did the politically correct brigade. Jack Straw rather more directly managed to infiltrate "liberal" as a straightforward term of abuse. And now, courtesy of his successor at the home office, we have "people who chat to each other". It is too early to say whether this will catch on. Readers with alternative suggestions might contact Mr Blunkett directly. It feels as if he's struggling a bit.

At the Woodcraft Camp at the weekend, the traditional adult campfire session was getting under way (kids now safely tucked up in their tents) and the conversation turned to Mistress Chloe, the dominatrix grammarian of Holloway Road (see earlier posting). The person who inititated this discussion wondered if anyone had heard of her. The campers were impressed and intrigued by my detailed knowledge. Seems she's becoming a bit of a 'meme' at the moment. I wonder if she's heard of viral marketing (or is she already indulging in some?)

B-)

The first time I ever voted it was for Scottish Devolution in 1979. A majority of those who voted (51.6%) said "yes". But that meant "no" because the devolution Bill stated that 40% of the electorate had to say yes, which would have required something like two-thirds of those who voted saying "yes". It was the start of a miserable pattern of voting disappointment (see John O'Farrell's 'Things Can Only Get Better' for an amusingly miserable memoir of the period).

My best ever voting experience was when Ken Livingstone was elected Mayor of London (4 May 2000). On my way to work I cycled into the polling station (yes, they let me cycle into the polling station), voted for Ken and gave my other vote to the Greens, knowing not only that Ken was going to win but also that the Green vote would actually have some effect (there are now three Greens on the Greater London Assembly, out of a total of 25 seats). Oh, and the sun was shining.

On Thursday, it's local election day in London. I'm wondering if the Le Pen effect will lead to a larger than usual turnout, and I'm wondering whether to vote for the Labour candidates or not. One of them, Josie Irwin, has to get one of my votes as she has actually done something for local folk here - she took an active part in saving our local library. But you couldn't rave about the Labour performance more generally, could you? On the other hand, what are the chances of a monster raving tory getting in if we all get complacent?

B-)

PS. We have a Liberal Democrat candidate called Mark Thatcher - should I be worried?

Dug is the guy who set this blog up for me. I've just given him special permission to send in anything he feels like. I wonder which one us will take the Morecambe role?

Dug's blog is at http://www.donkeyontheedge.com

I'm just about to go camping. Hope no-one mistakes us for spies when we're out on our rambles.

B-)

My cat seems unaware of lexical ambiguity. It keeps attacking my computer's mouse

Mind you, it also attacks my modem cable. Could she just be going for anything that starts with an M and an O?

Actually, now I get it, it's conceptual overgeneralisation. She just attacks anything.

B-)

I've never forgiven David Blunkett for his blatant linguistic truth evasion (= lying) about selection in schools. In case you've forgotten, at a Labour conference while they were still trying to get back into power, he boldly proclaimed, in classic political tub-thumping style: "Read my lips! No selection under a Labour government!" When they got in and confirmed that there would be selection under a Labour government, he spent a day trying out different ways of wriggling off the hook, and finally settled on "obviously, I was joking!" His tone, as it always is, was outraged and angry. There is no rocket science involved in looking at the video and determining that the idea that he was joking is nonsense.

His latest piece of applied linguistics follows his use of the word "swamping" when explaining that the government planned to segregate kids into special schools for asylum-seekers, to avoid "swamping" local schools. On the Today programme on the radio this week, he declared no regrets for having used the word, saying that any dictionary will tell you that "swamp" means "overwhelm" etc., i.e. he ignored the obvious negative connotations and denied the relevance of the allusion to Margaret Thatcher (she used to be Prime Minister, you know) who used the word in a much more inflammatory way referring to immigration in general.

Ignoring the appeal to naive assumptions about dictionaries and authority, which needs a whole seminar of its own, an interesting linguistic point in the interview was when Blunkett claimed that everybody recognised there was no question of anything negative about his use of words. The only people who'd kick up a fuss were people who "like to chat". I'm afraid I haven't checked the exact form of words yet, but the word "chat" was there. This is clearly another allusion to M. Thatcher who loved to go on about the "chattering classes", the idea being that these poncey, middle-class, guardian reading, radio 4 listening, folk should be ignored while we concentrate on the sensible folk who just get on with things without all this bloody talk. Ring any bells? Think of that guy across the channel who claims to represent "the real people" ...?

Last night on telly, Sandi Toksvig expressed surprise at recent news, saying "there seems to have been some terrible mistake, and the Labour government have appointed a Conservative as Home Secretary!" As Lloyd Grossman would say, "the clues are there"

Academics spend a lot of energy trying to look hip and up to the minute with their students.

It used to be easy. Just mention Madge or Kylie or whoever and keep an eye on the latest trends. Before I had seen South Park, a linguist advised me to utter the phrase "you will respect my authoritah!" I couldn't bring myself to cheat like that, though.

The best exponent of the art I have seen is Deirdre Wilson, who has always been more up to the minute than her UCL students on the latest antics of the A list. In my day, I remember her referring to Sean Penn's photographer bating (OK, beating) and Ozzy Osbourne's dietary habits ("Ozzy's coming to dinner? I'll bring a bat!"). I wonder who features in her classes these days?

Recently, students have become more varied and it's that much harder to look like you're tuned in. I mean, naturally we've all forgotten John Major, but I've met students who don't remember, or haven't heard of, that horrible woman who dominated these parts in the 80s. You know, "the silent one"?

Anyway, it seems like I've just run into a bit of luck. I've been teaching a course on "Grammar, Standards and Correctness". The idea is not to correct the students, but to look at prescriptive attitudes to language and explore where notions of correctness come from. Imagine my delight when I found Brian Case's article "Gagging For It" in Time Out. He meets Mistress Chloe from "Fettered Pleasures" and discusses not only her range of merchandise (remote control triple ripple butt plugs, anal catheter with double balloons, you know, the usual stuff) but also some of the ways she deals with her clients. He points out that "she comes down like a ton of bricks on bad grammar" She says "I deserve proper grammar. I'm a stickler for that. I expect my submissives to observe proper grammar and if they don't, they have to write lines".

I wonder what I'd have to do to persuade her to come and give a guest lecture?