ANOTHER VOICE murray swart Clones of each other

JOURNALISM is largely about finding the truth and interpreting the facts before presenting them in a manner that is palatable, precise and fit for public perusal.

In essence, our job is to find stories that matter and tell them in a way that would allow our readers the option of an informed and factually-based opinion.

In order to do so as fluently as possible, all those long hours sitting in a classroom, learning about parts and figures of speech, prose, poems and participles, both past and present, actually count for something.

To this day, I may not be able to tell you why X+Y=Z but I still know the difference between a metaphor and simile.

I still remember to always use ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ and know the distinction between ‘borrow’ and ‘lend’.

However, make no mistake, despite having a relatively good grasp of the English language, I still make plenty of errors.

For one, I still don’t know where to put the ‘y’ in ‘rhythm’ (thanks spell check) and I still sometimes get confused between ‘condone’ and ‘condemn’, with delightfully devastating consequences.

There is also plenty of guess work involved when it comes to using ‘I’ versus ‘me’ but considering that this is a difficult language that is littered with literary and linguistic rules, each with an exception that leaves plenty of room for inaccurate interpretations, I like to believe I have an above average gift of the gab.

One thing is for sure. I know about oxymorons and while our mayor is not one of them, several of the standard examples, taught in the classroom, can still be used to describe him.

An ‘oxymoron’ is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

‘Cruel to be kind’ is a good example, as are ‘pleasure for pain’, ‘virtual reality’ and ‘alone together’.

However, the real reason why I can remember the definition is because the word almost sounds like an insult but isn’t.

We all go through times when we find ourselves clearly confused by self-proclaimed, honest politicians, posing as our only option.

Only after handing over our approval, confidence, support and, most importantly, our votes, do we realise just how amazingly awful these deeply superficial officials, offering only definite maybes, truly are.

Therefore, I’ll say it again. Kimberley’s mayor is no oxymoron but can be described with more than one.

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet but working effortlessly is tantamount to busy doing nothing.

Politicians are often clones of each other so unfortunately, voting for against some is the ‘same difference’.

After all, one of the best known examples of an oxymoron is that of an honest politician and as Oscar Wilde so eloquently put it: “I can believe anything, provided it is quite incredible.”

It has been said that ‘a little pain never hurt anyone’ but politicians aren’t just anyone.

More often than not, these are individuals that like humanity but hate people and never learned that a business that makes nothing but money is a bad business.

Despite knowing what is bound to happen, we cast our votes never anticipating any emergencies and when we end up serving our politicians, rather than them serving us, we express outrage and condemnation but inevitably, laugh it off and make the same mistake on our next visit to the polls.

This is the wrong attitude and is no laughing matter unless you define a joke as Winston Churchill once did, “A joke is actually an extremely really serious issue.”