But I have a little list. First of all a vice-principal who handed me my timetable and it said "ambulatory invigilation." And I said, "What the hell's this?" It was hall duty. And then...

Was he suggesting that hall duty was beneath you, but that ambulatory... what was the second word?

I don't know, but in my school it was often "Keep moving kid because ...[laughs]... [laughs]... yaya don't know what's around the next corner." Then there's the VON handbook that was written, and there was something in it called a "Self-care deficit." Now that's a dirty four-letter word called a bath. And then of course there is the, um, the less-attractive language that we've come to hear about later called "collateral damage" where it means "Oh, sorry guys, we killed the wrong people."

But what I wanted to ask Michelle was, a theory of language that I've heard expressed says that basically the language is constructed almost defensively and that, in other words, this is my area of expertise, and I'm going to hang onto it come hell or high water, and the way I'm going to do that is to keep you out and to keep you dependent, is I'm going to fill it with all kinds of obfuscations, with polysyllabic words, so that it becomes a defensive one and a defensive territory. So it's not a question so much of I'm concerned about litigation or that I'm concerned about covering all the bases, but basically it's a case of empire building, and I'm wondering what Michelle thinks about that idea I've heard brooded.

Actually, uh, that was the idea that I think made me feel most strongly about doing this kind of work. As you're saying, there are a lot of folks out here who, we do write the ways that you've mentioned--such as using "ambulatory invigilation" etcetera, because we've come out of school maybe, or we're trying to establish credibility, and to be able to get in with the people who seem already to be able to understand that kind of language.

Yeah, and so I think that a lot of us do it innocently because we see that as a way to get in with a certain niche of people who have power. Our keynote speaker this past weekend was named Bill Lutz, from the US, and he's written a couple of books: one called Doublespeak, and the subheading of that one is "From Revenue Enhancement to Terminal Living." Terminal living meaning death, right?

The ultimate rehab!

There you go [laughs]! And that's exactly his premise, and he's saying you know these aren't folks who aren't skilled in using language--in fact they're perhaps more skilled than all us in that room at writing and at constructing language, and that for sure, a lot of times it is done to defend the people giving the messages from having to be accountable for those messages.