TRUMP AND CO HAVE MAULED LANGUAGE IN BIGGLY FASHION

The ever-evolving English language was subjected to some pretty rough treatment throughout this year

THE year 2017 has been the battle of the haircuts.

Donald Trump’s headpiece looked like it was about to take off like a flying fox, and Kim Jong-un’s bowl cut was the perfect do for an insane, infantile dictator.

Luckily neither sent a missile directly at each other or we may not be here to celebrate another year.

According to the Plain English Foundation, it was also a bad year for words. The foundation, a watchdog on language use, says the Trump camp’s use of “alternative facts” is this year’s worst phrase.

Apparently an alternative fact is a fact that’s different from the actual fact. Got it?

The Trumpet also scored the year’s worst tautology with “fabricated lies made up by fake news media”.

Poor Donald. Perhaps close your Twitter account. And talk to your barber, soon … please.

The Trump admin also gave us “instinctive correctness”. His press secretary said Trump was “instinctively correct” that disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn had committed “no violation”.

So if you are ever wrong about something, just claim you were “instinctively correct”. I’ll save that one for tricky situations.

Other corkers came out when a passenger was forcibly removed from a plane. The airline said it was an “overbook situation” that led to “involuntary deboarding”.

Australia had its own language difficulties in 2017. In the debate on same-sex marriage, a spokesperson for the No campaign suggested we consider alternatives such as “garriage”, “unism” or “pairage” instead of extending the definition of traditional marriage between a man and woman.

I’m afraid “garriage” sounds like somewhere you park the car. And “unism” sounds like some weird UFO cult, while “pairage” sounds like a gardening term.

Let’s just let them get married, shall we? Who would they hurt? Magda Szubanski signs a marriage certificate. Is this going to affect climate change?

Pauline Hanson (never a great commander of language) also rates a mention with the foundation for saying the covert recording of one of her staff was very “fixatious”. Please explain.

When the Turnbull Government asked the Energy Security Board for details of its National Energy Guarantee, the board outlined “an optimised non-linear trajectory” for reducing emissions. What?

A masterpiece of gobbledygook came from TV presenter Don Burke, accused of sexual misconduct. He pronounced: “I might have terrified a few people or whatever, and I shouldn’t have done that, but these sort of things bear no relation to me and what I am about.”

Another word to rear an ugly head was “betterer”.

A bank asked: “Need a better holiday, a better car, better whatever? Talk to the betterers.”

Language is always amorphous, changing year by year. That can be a good thing or a bad thing.

Speaking of “good”, that’s a word that has spread its meaning.

Shop assistants now say “have a good one” instead of “have a nice day”. When something’s done well, it’s “good to go”.

“It’s all good” has become another ubiquitous term.

The old Australian term of “good on you” has stood the test of time, but I never quite understood what it meant. How can you put good on someone?

Another word that has become wearisome is “awesome”.

I have heard a sandwich, a bowl of soup, a pair of shoes, a punctual train trip and a repaired car tyre described as “awesome”.

So have an awesome New Year.