Oh my word!

L ast week, I complained that politicians’ language was highly intemperate when compared to the considered speeches made in the Supreme Court.

My exhortations for improvement fell on deaf ears. The use of language in the House of Commons was considerably worse in the middle of the week. Never mind the Brexit difficulties, a language crisis descended upon us.

Some of the things said, on both sides, were appalling. And the foam-flecked anger that fanned further heat into the insults was equally horrible.

We acknowledge that MPS are intelligent people, of course they are. But too many lost their self-control that evening in a highly pressurised situation. That is worrying. Worse still, some of the inflammatory language used may have been deliberate. An effort to create division for political gain. A glance at history will reveal that we should all be worried about that.

However, I think the week’s events resulted in a rebound. Greater attention has since been paid to the language used by those in high places. The widespread criticism made some politicians more careful about what they were saying.

Though the vituperative exchanges in parliament on Wednesday night were a nadir, it was a little heartening that some politicians sought to distance themselves from this type of outburst.

The use of threatening or aggressive language is probably the world’s most common crime. Yet few cases of defamation reach the courts (under Scots law there is no distinction between written libel and spoken slander, both are “defamation”). It would seem that bad use of language isn’t punished.

The reverse is true in my experience. As a child I was robustly punished when I used a swear word in front of my mother. I had only the vaguest grasp of the definition of the word, but the meaning of the painful lesson that followed was crystal clear. I didn’t swear in front of my mother ever again, and that held true until the day she died nearly 50 years later.

I learned a lesson when I used intemperate language, and there are lessons in what we’ve heard in the past week. If you want to be seen as an intelligent, trustworthy person then be assiduously careful about the language you use and the way you speak. If you don’t have control of yourself, how can you have control of anything?

Those who speak like fools are considered fools.