12 February (Part 2) - The importance of precise wording
Writing for the web is a risky business. I try very hard to be absolutely
accurate with what is written here and pedantically correct to avoid ambiguities. I feel
that sometimes the language becomes rather stilted as a result, just as legal
stuff does, but so far it has kept me out of trouble. I except
Teresa O’Neill’s invented stories of course.
On Monday,
UKIP Bexley posted the following Tweet after their councillor
Lynn Smith put in an appearance at
the News Shopper’s park closure demo in Danson Park.
Taken
ultra literally it says only one person turned up at Danson Park to support the
hard core of protestors and she was a UKIP councillor.
Given that the Tweet links to a picture of about 30 supporters in the park you’d
have to be a world class pedant to think that was the case. Obviously it should
have said “Only councillor to turn up was UKIP”, but does it really matter?
Well, to the UKIP haters and their political opponents it evidently did. It was a lie they said and cobbled
together a vitriolic argument for no sensible reason I could fathom.
When I interjected that electors like me make up their minds about which way
to vote based on political exchanges such as this, I was asked why I was commenting.
Not supposed to comment on Twitter, now that’s a novel concept!
Lynn Smith’s appearance at the Danson Park demo was mentioned at
the scrutiny
meeting this week. There has been no time to check the recording yet but from
memory it was councillor Sharon Massey who was critical of UKIP councillor Lynn
Smith. It would appear that a councillor representing the people in unofficial
ways is somehow letting the side down. Words fail me. If the weekend presents any spare
time I’ll search the tape and post a section in a later blog.