Monday 19 July 2010

Rather

So the government has decided not to ban the burka, on the grounds that to do so would be 'rather unBritish'. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this (and there might have been a case for a ban on security/crime prevention grounds - after all, one of the 7/7 bombers fled the country in a burka), isn't it good to see the word 'rather' restored to our public discourse? Can you imagine the adamantine absolutist Broon or any of his lot qualifying any judgment with the very English, understated qualifier 'rather'? Sometimes I rather like the cut of this government's jib.

5 comments:

  1. I use it often, as it's a useful shortcut to British Understatement. It can also be an ejaculation of enthusiastic agreement - Rather! - but I always think that enthusiatic agreement is rather overdoing things.

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  2. Gordon is as we speak rather wishing he had penned his memoirs in advance of Peters.

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  3. Hmmn, I rather think Broon is doing the right thing. Rather than, say, handing a sheaf of papers to an underling and hissing "Bring me the head of Penguin Books", Broon really does want to get to grips with a rather tricky subject, the story of a poor, misunderstood genius from Kirkcaldy. I'd suggest Broon gives himself plenty of time and agrees not to publish a word for 1000 years at least. It'll be ready when it's ready.

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  4. A commenter in today's Scotsman writes...
    Why hasn't Brown done the right thing yet...study, letter, pistol

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  5. Mark, I fear Brown is trying to pull off a Churchill with respect to the financial crisis: 'history will be kind to me as I intend to write it'. Getting your version out first - and making it sufficiently weighty - makes everything else revisionism.

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