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I’m going to go out on a limb here...
Nov. 5th, 2019 01:14 pmAnd state I think Jacob Rees-MoogMogg wasn’t at fault in what he said. The context of the quote: “...the more one’s read over the weekend, about the report and the chances of people surviving, if you just ignore what you’re told and leave, you are so much safer... and, I think if either of us are in a fire [present tense] whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems like a common sense thing to do.” seems to place it. But what do I know?
Post hoc it is always possible to see what to do, and this is what Rees-Mogg is pointing out. It is precisely because the fire brigade’s advice to stay put is counter-intuitive that it takes effort to accept it. And in buildings without cladding the advice is still sound if counter-intuitive.
I don’t like having to defend Rees-Mogg, however; but folk are reading this the wrong way. To use an old legal metaphor, let’s hang him for his actual crimes rather than the ones of our imagination.
I wonder if it’s a language problem. Rees-Mogg, for all his many faults, speaks a language which requires thinking about for those who have not been brought up in elite grammatical and linguistic forms; despite such linguistic forms being paraded on Radio 4 and various news outlets all the time. When I was brought up these grammatical and linguistic forms were commonplace and used by the upper, upper middle, professional, and lower middle classes - i.e. over half the population. But as the idea of the Queen’s English has declined various regional dialects prospered, and now we have telly programmes wherein we find that the linguistic forms of grime have extended to remotest Lancashire, but folk in London can’t parse Rees-Mogg’s latest pronouncement accurately given context.
What really gets my goat here is that I end up coming to Rees-Moggin the Mogg’s defence. I must now go and cleanse my soul.
Post hoc it is always possible to see what to do, and this is what Rees-Mogg is pointing out. It is precisely because the fire brigade’s advice to stay put is counter-intuitive that it takes effort to accept it. And in buildings without cladding the advice is still sound if counter-intuitive.
I don’t like having to defend Rees-Mogg, however; but folk are reading this the wrong way. To use an old legal metaphor, let’s hang him for his actual crimes rather than the ones of our imagination.
I wonder if it’s a language problem. Rees-Mogg, for all his many faults, speaks a language which requires thinking about for those who have not been brought up in elite grammatical and linguistic forms; despite such linguistic forms being paraded on Radio 4 and various news outlets all the time. When I was brought up these grammatical and linguistic forms were commonplace and used by the upper, upper middle, professional, and lower middle classes - i.e. over half the population. But as the idea of the Queen’s English has declined various regional dialects prospered, and now we have telly programmes wherein we find that the linguistic forms of grime have extended to remotest Lancashire, but folk in London can’t parse Rees-Mogg’s latest pronouncement accurately given context.
What really gets my goat here is that I end up coming to Rees-Moggin the Mogg’s defence. I must now go and cleanse my soul.
