Joe Biden has advised his aides to avoid academic or elitist language when sharing ideas, but what stands out is how he told them to do it.
According to the New York Times, here is what he had to say: “Pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me. If she understands, we can keep talking.”
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Joe Biden has advised his aides to avoid academic or elitist language when sharing ideas, but what stands out is how he told them to do it.
According to the New York Times, here is what he had to say: “Pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me. If she understands, we can keep talking.”
It’s surprising advice coming from a man married to a woman with a doctorate, who is also a mom. Mothers can speak in elitist or academic language just as much as anyone else.
Without really trying, Biden is engaging in sexist behavior.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that in the pantheon of chauvinist sins, Biden’s advice pales in comparison to some of the daily utterances of his predecessor.
But such advice diminishes presidential discourse. The language is being dumbed down so that it no longer uplifts, but condescends.
Imagine if Abraham Lincoln took this approach with the Gettysburg Address.
“Four score and seven,” would become “87 years.” I guess they mean the same thing but the poetry and majesty of the words have been stripped away.
Biden’s “Read it to your mother,” advice has been issued by journalism professors and editors to young reporters for generations. The idea is to get people to write the way ordinary people talk.
One editor I worked with switched it around and would say, “Is this something you would say to your dad?”
Decades ago, that editor didn’t like my use of the word “linchpin” in one of my stories. I’d quoted someone saying a particular clause was the “linchpin” of the U.S. Constitution.
She said, “You wouldn’t say a sentence with “linchpin” in it to your dad would you?”
My response, “Well, yeah, I would.”
With a flick of the wrist she replied, “Well, your dad is really well educated. Come up with a different word.”
My Dad was a farmer. We used linchpins every day to hook wagons and other farm implements to tractors. It was part of my agrarian lexicon. (Farm vocabulary.)
But I figured I’d dug a deep enough hole for myself that day and didn’t need to add that to my argument.