Hung Parliament

Hung Parliament: lo scenario in cui, in un sistema bipolare come quello del Regno Unito, nessun partito ottiene la maggioranza assoluta per poter governare da solo.

In inglese, "hung parliament" è un’espressione idiomatica, tanto che molti dizionari inglesi la trattano come voce indipendente o comunque viene inserita sotto l’aggettivo hung e non è associata al participio passato del verbo hang. Il significato di hung infatti è metaforico e descrive una situazione di incertezza, “in sospeso”.
Molti media italiani non sembrano rendersene conto e probabilmente pensano a una collocazione (le singole parole che compongono l’espressione mantengono il significato che hanno al di fuori della collocazione stessa), tanto che la traduzione preferita è "parlamento appeso". Addirittura c’è chi parla anche di "parlamento impiccato", ignorando che il participio passato del verbo hang nell’accezione “impiccare” è hanged e non hung.
Più adeguata e' la scelta di chi ha mantenuto l’espressione inglese e l’ha spiegata con “parlamento paralizzato”, “parlamento bloccato” oppure con un più descrittivo “senza maggioranza assoluta”.

tratto da: Terminologia etc.

Lingue, la nostra università fanalino d'Europa

tratto da: La Stampa

Le autorità italiane, è notizia recente, pretendono giustamente che nei documenti dell’Unione europea l’italiano non venga discriminato. Resta però il fatto che, comunque, negli importanti incontri informali e in molte discussioni ufficiali, si parla inglese, o francese, o magari tedesco, le lingue della comunicazione internazionale e/o del potere economico. Lingue che molti dei nostri rappresentanti conoscono poco e male.
Non è colpa loro. Non del tutto. La cultura italiana a lungo ha ignorato la necessità di conoscere le altre lingue moderne. Si faceva un po’ d’eccezione per il francese - con la paradossale conseguenza che un tempo i romanzi russi venivano tradotti non dall’originale, ma dalla loro versione francese (lo stesso, più di recente, accadde per un dramma di Tennessee Williams). Un pochino si faceva eccezione anche per il tedesco, perché serviva a filosofi e filologi. Ma si trattava di conoscenze per pochi.
L’Università non pensava affatto che valesse la pena dare spazio e rilievo allo studio delle lingue e delle culture straniere moderne. Furono le facoltà di Economia, per ovvi motivi pratici, a dare vita ai primi corsi di laurea in lingue, da cui qualche decennio fa si svilupparono le Facoltà. Adesso le facoltà di Lingue sono una ventina, con migliaia di studenti che ricevono una formazione in cui lo studio linguistico è centrale, per importanza e per numero di esami e di docenti - a differenza di quanto avviene dove esso è solo uno dei diversi percorsi formativi proposti.
Eppure questo tardivo riconoscimento della sua necessità e dignità culturale è costantemente svuotato dall’indifferenza (se non insofferenza) del mondo universitario, aggrappato allo statu quo ante. E anche opinionisti e ministri sembrano credere che, comunque, basti studiare qualche oretta (magari ascoltando un cd) per imparare una lingua straniera. Con i risultati che vediamo a Bruxelles. Permane l’idea che, se proprio le lingue bisogna saperle, questo non significa che sia necessario investire nelle facoltà di Lingue come luogo dove si preparano, con un lavoro di anni - e non di qualche mesetto - dei cittadini italiani in grado di essere linguisticamente cittadini del mondo.
I laureati in Lingue, dice un recente rilevamento statistico, sono quelli, dopo i laureati in Economia, che tra i laureati delle facoltà umanistiche più rapidamente trovano un posto di lavoro. Perché ce n’è bisogno. Come c’è bisogno che i migliori di loro possano proseguire gli studi di specializzazione per diventare bravi insegnanti nelle scuole e attenuare (nonostante le poche ore di lezione) l’ignoranza linguistica che caratterizza il nostro Paese.
La riforma dell’Università attualmente in discussione offre tuttavia nuovi strumenti ai fautori dell’indifferenza. I corsi di laurea si sposterebbero sui Dipartimenti; ma le facoltà resterebbero comunque, come organismo di indispensabile coordinamento. E come punto di riferimento decisivo per gli studenti. Il fatto è che le facoltà non potrebbero essere più di dodici per ogni Ateneo. I presidi di Lingue, già un anno fa, mandarono un documento al ministero in cui, proprio pensando al contesto europeo, denunciavano il rischio di perdere «l’esperienza internazionale fondante acquisita nelle facoltà di Lingue» qualora esse scomparissero dentro altre facoltà.
C’è da temere che gli Atenei con più di 12 facoltà (se il Parlamento non eliminerà tale limite) per l’indifferenza dei più e il tornaconto di qualcuno decideranno di abolirle. A quel punto gli studenti che davvero vorranno «studiare Lingue» dovranno orientarsi verso le sedi dove il loro studio sarà programmaticamente centrale (da Torino, ad esempio, potranno rivolgersi a Milano, dove rimarranno ben due facoltà di Lingue). Ma a fronte di un impoverimento complessivo dell’offerta linguistica che, come insegna Bruxelles, questo Paese non può più permettersi.

Bigots and nutters

published on: Guardian

Should politicians speak their mind, or mind how they speak?

Gordon Brown, who has apologised for calling a Rochdale woman 'bigoted'.
Whether or not this exciting and unpredictable election breaks the mould of British politics, it may be remembered as the campaign in which some leading politicians actually said what they thought: Tory Europhobes are in league with a bunch of nutters, and people who disparage immigrants are bigoted. I can't have been the only viewer to do a double take – did he really just say that? – when Nick Clegg used that particular N-word in the second TV debate. But after all the gibberish about "fairness" and empty rhetoric of the manifestos and party election broadcasts, it was refreshing to hear someone use language that had not been vetted into gaffe-proof blandness by the spin doctors. The excellent Tory blogger Iain Dale has pointed out that, as the party leaders had agreed with the charity Rethink not to use language likely to increase stigma against people with mental health problems, Clegg should have apologised. Dale added: "It may be a small thing to some people – and a case of political correctness gone mad for others – and of course people say many things in the heat of the moment, but a word of regret from Mr Clegg may be in order here. "Clegg doesn't need me to defend him – it would be inconsistent of me, given that the Guardian scrupulously avoids the use of offensive words such as "nutter" – but all the same: in an era when, if you say "isn't it a nice day?" to a politician, they will start evaluating how it will play in the tabloids before replying, he surely deserves some credit for being human, and not a permanently on-message android. The same argument might apply to Gordon Brown, had he not characteristically made a difficult situation worse today with his grovelling apologies over what, despite our best efforts to stamp out the automatic application of "gate" to anything remotely scandalous, some of my colleagues are calling "Bigotgate".In reply to the woman who asked "All these eastern Europeans – where are they coming from?" the prime minister might have settled for a simple reply: "Er … eastern Europe."Instead he let slip that he thought her a "bigoted woman". Given that she also said: "You can't say anything about immigrants," he may have had a point. Why shouldn't he speak his mind for a change? Better, surely, than following John Prescott's example and giving her a thump.

Little platoons

There's no reference to Hegel in the Tory manifesto, but there is an allusion to one of the founding fathers of conservative thought, Edmund Burke. The "institutional building blocks of the Big Society", the document reads, "[are] the 'little platoons' of civil society".

“Little platoons" is a phrase that occurs in Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), the classic expression of conservative scepticism about large-scale attempts to transform society in the image of abstract ideals. The Tories today use it to refer to the local associations that would go to form a "broad culture of responsibility, mutuality and obligation".
The problem is that, for Burke, little platoons weren't groups that you volunteer to join; they were the "social subdivisions" into which you are born - the kind of traditionalism you would have thought Cameron's rebranded "progressive" Conservatives would want to avoid.
The election campaign hasn’t been all surface effects. There’s been a bit of philosophy at times, too, as the Tories, borrowing from Burke and Hegel, have attempted to form a new kind of political language.


Modern politicians often sound as if they are speaking the same desiccated, drearily technocratic language. That has been true for much of this campaign, but, for all that, there have been some conceptual and rhetorical innovations, and even phrases that appear to be the freshly minted coinage of spin doctors and campaign managers turn out to be made of older metal than we might have expected.

published on: www.faqs.org

Naked Governement

Term in China associated with administrative transparency.

published on: Schott's Vocab

In an article for Inter Press Service, Kit Gillet noted a sixty-year tendency in the Chinese government not to disclose information on budgetary and spending matters and revealed, “this may be about to change”:In January, in what some are calling China’s first case of “naked government,” Baimiao, a small town in the southern province of Sichuan, released its budget to the public. The details were not pretty: they showed that 65% of local government spending had gone to accommodating and entertaining officials.
Then, in March, Guangdong, the province closest to Hong Kong and the manufacturing heartland of China, announced that it would be publicizing its financial budget for this year. This is the first time that a provincial-level administration has decided to release these records since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949.
Many feel that this could be the beginning of greater government transparency in China.
“In the past this [greater transparency] has been a topic that nobody was allowed to talk about, but at least now we can talk about it in the open and hope for a change,” Li Chengyan, a professor at Peking University’s School of Government, told IPS.
“Although it is just a beginning, I believe we will see a chain effect; other local governments will have to make their budget transparent under pressure from the public,” Li said.

What is the difference between jargon and buzzword?

published on: Techrepublic

A buzzword is a popular moniker for a phenomenon, idea, or practice. Some buzzwords start out as clever or insightful metaphors, but by the time they’re called buzzwords, any metaphoric value has died; and yet, the word continues to be overused, and it therefore becomes part of the “buzz” about a topic — often more background noise than substance.
Buzzwords represent a subset of a larger phenomenon: words that are used for an effect that lies beyond their strict definitions. The most extreme example of the class is the word, which stretches the definition of the word word. It has no denotation of its own, but its meaning when used is “I’m thinking about what I want to say next, but I don’t want to yield the floor to anyone else in the meantime.”
Another word that relies mostly on meta-meaning is basically. At face value, the word basically denotes the fundamental nature of something, or a summarization. In practice, though, it says “I’m giving you the short version that isn’t very rigorous, so don’t raise any objections to my rule — and you can assume that I know more on the subject than you’re able to comprehend.”
Buzzwords serve a similar purpose; these words often act as a stand-in for a whole knowledge domain. When someone uses a buzzword in conversation, everyone involved is presumed to know what it means and everything behind it. More importantly, the hearers are expected to presume that the speaker knows everything about the subject. For instance, how many times have you heard “in the cloud” or “cloud-based solution” without any explanation being offered or requested?

Buzzwords differ from jargon.

Jargon is a collection of domain-specific terminology with precise, specialized meanings. When two people understand the same jargon, they can communicate on that subject more efficiently. Buzzwords, on the other hand, over-generalize a subject in an attempt to make the speaker’s content appear more significant than it is. Buzzwords provide the same function in conversation that raising the hackles serves in animal encounters: They’re a fake display of greatness, and they’re often born of the same kind of fears.

Getting a handle on the language

Thanks to the economy, technology and fashion, there are so many new words being created you'd have to be a "didiot" not to notice them. As a didiot myself, I assumed didiot means someone who's an idiot with digital technology (that would be moi), but no: It is a hybrid of "damn" and "idiot." A "yoot" sounds like either a Dr. Seuss character or the way your cousin Vinny would pronounce "youth," but instead it is a person young enough not to remember life before youtube.
Men were already suffering in the "mancession" -- meaning disproportionately more men are unemployed due to the languishing of traditionally male trades like construction. Now they have to cope with the "Tiger effect," too. That's newly alert wives checking up on them through cellphone, GPS, and e-mail records. And by the way, a GPS is not just a gizmo but also a driver that gives too many directions. I have just bought a GPS myself and love it, but wish that instead of the bossy female voice directing me this way and that, I could have mine programmed with Colin Firth telling me in his posh British accent, "Oops! This is a one-way, ducky!" or "Wait 'til the light goes green, love."
Anyway, the Tiger effect must be the downside of "funemployment" for some, that is, enforced time off work that might as well be used to do long-postponed enjoyable things. With today's technology, can cheaters of either gender really be dumb enough to think they won't get caught, or on some level do they want to be? Nah, that's giving them too much credit for psychological complexity. Sex addicts, my Aunt Mabel! They ain't nothin' but hounddogs.
Other new words for males include "hegans," men who are vegetarians but not necessarily sissies, and "heavage," for the male cleavage that Simon Cowell shows off so proudly. Back, too, is the "pornstache," the full luxuriant moustache of the 70s that was especially popular with newsmen and porn actors. Maybe someday the five o' clock shadow that lost Tricky Dick the presidential debate -- but that many women now inexplicably find sexy -- will also seem quaint.
We have the recession to thank for the lack of a "speeding cushion," that is the five miles above the speed limit that a nice ossifer used to let you get by with; now more tickets are being written as cities and states try to rev up their revenues. That "incentifies" drivers to follow the limits. I've been seeing "incentify" a lot in the business world; it's one of those conversions of a noun to a verb that drives traditionalists and grammarians crazy. Sure enough it sounds dopey, but I have come around to the belief that in language, change is inevitable and correctness rests mostly upon usage; it's like a river because it is never the same twice.
From my kids I've picked up "meh," which signifies profound indifference. An exchange might go like this. Question: "Do you want to rent Al Gore's documentary about climate change?" Answer: "Meh."
A neologism that strikes my fancy is "Nocialism," that is, the denial that a policy or law being proposed is an example of Socialism. In politics closer to home, I keep hearing Gov. Culver referred to regularly, but not affectionately, as "the big lug," a signal that his jig is up come November.
From the travel industry comes the word "yotel," very small but sometimes very fancy accommodations that originated in Japan, allowing people to experience luxury for less. From fashion this spring comes "the shoe boot," a warm weather version of the boot. For me, it conjures up a surprisingly tender "All in the Family" episode in which Archie recalls how other kids called him "shoe bootie" because he was so poor he had to wear one shoe and one boot to school. If you remember that episode, too, kid, you're no "yoot."

This post appeared originally in the Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa.