This speech is too flowery
I’m not saying this is my experience, or my world, but I thought I’d share it with you:
“… The Minister took speeches seriously. He saw them as occasions to demonstrate his erudition by impressing audiences with quotations, statistics and flowery language. He had no sense of occasion: every speech, no matter how informal or mundane the occasion, had to be written not for the moment but for posterity.
All this made Beth’s job a living nightmare. Not only did she have to co-ordinate the speechwriting process so that it met the Minister’s exacting standards, she had to do it in time for both translation into the second official language and for distribution to the breathless media, most of whom she knew would glance at the title and relegate the document to either the blue circular file or to the back pages of the Saturday edition…” (Ottawa Citizen)
That’s from this week’s entry in the the E.X. Files - a weekly column that putatively speaks from the voice of a jaded and frustrated executive in the Canadian public service.
This week, the column focuses on the art of preparing speeches for government ministers.
October 3rd, 2007 14:55
Yanno, I find that column so very tiresome. I mean, at least the particular one you quote is kind of funny, and more than a little bit accurate… but in general, I find that they do nothing more creative than stir up a few tired old stereotypes to slag the public servants. It’s pointless, often meanspirited, and casts broad aspersions on what is generally a hardworking and dedicated group of people.
IMHO.