Clarity

George Bush's most heinous contribution to the English language is the popularization of the phrase: Let's be clear. This is a phrase is pervasive in polemical speech, and has become a sort of way to catch the reader or listener's attention to focus them on some particular phrase of obvious clarity. There are not enough bits in cyberspace to list the number of political leaders, columnists and other polemicists who have resorted to relying on this construction to pepper their otherwise unclear thoughts.

If you have to tell the reader that the time has come to be "clear", then perhaps what you have already said was unclear. In speech, it is normal that you might say something that is not entirely understandable. So instead of saying "lets be clear", just clear your throat and say exactly what it is that you want to be heard. In writing, the construction "let's be clear" is fundamentally flawed. The written word allows us to pause long enough to reflect upon what it is we want to be understood. Instead of wasting my time as a reader telling me that you are about to be clear, just be clear. It is entirely undertandable that some will want to write convoluted texts, and more power to those people. Yet those who wish to be understood clearly have simply to express themselves clearly, without insulting our intelligence by telling "us" that is time to be "clear".

As somebody who did all-nighters when the Clarity Act was passed by Parliament in 2000, I respect clarity. I also respect people who did cartwheels, like Floyd, in the House lobby in the middle of the night. I digress. Clarity speaks for itself.

Now, if you want to catch somebody's attention, why don't you say: Let's be ambiguously vague. In the case of most politicians, it would be pretty accurate.