If you’re on TV holding forth on news/views, you’ve got to use words with care because we’re hanging on to every word you say. Really. And words matter. Utterances must be intelligent, accurate or at least kind of true, unless you’re Arnab (Surname not necessary. Some people own a name – there is only one Arnab, like there is only one Pran or one Gulzar or one Amitabh). In which case, no matter what he says it’ll fly since Arnab has reached an escape velocity which allows him to break free of the gravitational pull of reason. Fly Arnab fly, and we’ll love you just the same.

But if you’re not Arnab, you’ve got to make sense, at least kind of. I try not to and it doesn’t work. I’m not Arnab. And unfortunately many others aren’t either.

We’ve all grown up (unless you’ve been resisting that, which is fine) hearing phrases which sound journalistic or smart. The problem with many of these phrases is that they’re only relevant in a specific context and throwing them in the beginning, middle or end of any sentence may sound grammatically correct – but is nonsensical, journalistically. Here are only a few for now. Feel free to send in your suggestions of badly used journalistic clichés to contact@newslaundry.com and we’ll add them to this list.

“Aren’t you politicising the issue?”

I heard Vishnu Som of NDTV 24X7 ask this to a panelist from another political party about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Politicising the 1984 riots? It is a political issue. Not politicising it would be what? The 1984 riot was a political riot, as was 2002. It had a political context, a political history and some would argue a political motive. Politicising it is the job of any political party. Now if a minister was screwing his sis-in-law or had an alternative sexual preference and a political party took that up, that would be politicising a non-political issue. But most issues taken up are political and will be treated such.

“What’s interesting is that…”

If you start your sentence with that phrase, please end up saying something interesting. Stating something like, “What’s interesting is that Manmohan Singh has not commented on that”. No dude! That’s not interesting. That’s how it’s always been. “Interesting” would be if Manmohan Singh said something and then stopped and then smiled and then said – “Oh, if only you knew what I think of that”. In that case, even though he as usual hasn’t said anything, he’s not said anything, but in an “interesting” way. So “interesting” could qualify. “Interesting” must have the promise of something unusual other than the obvious and ordinary. But, too often, a sentence is started with that phrase because the anchor-reporter is thinking something up or waiting for the tele-prompter to work. Others that fall into this category are – “Of course” and “Obviously” often used as a stop gap like clearing your throat or a cough.

“Ironically”

Please don’t say ironically unless there is irony. Irony and bad luck aren’t the same thing. This is the most abused word thrown at us and I suspect Alanis Morissette is responsible because her song Ironic from the album Jagged Little Pill listing out a gazillion things and not one of them was ironic. I quote – “A traffic jam when you’re already late. A no smoking sign on your cigarette break. It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. It’s like meeting the man of your dream and meeting his beautiful wife. Isn’t it ironic?” No! None of those things are ironic. And just so you know how much this irks me, please realise that I have admitted to knowing the lyrics of an Alanis song. Ugh! TV news and Newslaundry will shred me of all dignity. None of the things Alanis listed is ironic. They’re just bad luck. It would be ironic if the “traffic jam when you’re already late” was caused by a bunch of nails you laid out on the street to delay your competitor from getting somewhere on time and they ended up biting you in the ass. There must be one additional layer of a contradiction in intent or expectation for irony to kick in. There’s nothing ironic in Nitish Kumar walking out of the NDA. It’s doublespeak or opportunism. No irony there. There’s nothing ironic about a politician changing his or her stance on something unless there is an unintended contradictory subtext.

We all do that. Repeat things without knowing what they mean.

I was in an all-boys boarding school founded by a British lady, Miss Oliphant and many traditions were very British and till Class Four whenever it was anyone’s birthday we sang, “He’s a jolly good felll-OH, he’s a jolly good felll- OH. He’s a jolly good fell-OH and sussay alla fusss. Sussay alla fusss. Sussay alla fuss”.

I had no idea what “Sussay alla fusss” meant at that time. I just belted it out full throttle till there was even a cubic centimeter of air in my lungs in anticipation of the cake that followed. I’d heard it sung by seniors who had no doubt heard it sung by their seniors, and although the school was founded in 1937 and I’m guessing Miss Oliphant presided over it with other Britishers with stiff upper lips who’d started this tradition, by the time I joined in 1980 there were no Brits and generations of Punjabis, Garhwalis, Gujjus, Bongs etc had added their accents to the song. It was only as an adult I realised we’d been singing the very British – “He’s a jolly good fellow and so say all of us. So say all of us…” Which when you try to sing with stiff upper lip and Brit accent sounds really lame and not half as cool as how we sang it. But the way we sang it made no sense to anyone. I don’t sing either version anymore, but if I had to, I’d know what the words are.