Army English

It is a well known fact that in the army standards of English are low to say the least, perhaps due to low educational qualifications or just plain lack of effort. It is hard (though not impossible) to find a superior capable of delivering instructions in what would be deemed acceptable English. This used to irritate me slightly, but after 2 years the wide array of broken English in the form of bad grammar and spelling errors has begun to amuse me somewhat.

Recently a friend of mine received an award for "Soldier of the Month". The write up of his accomplishments on the official plaque he received was erm... interesting?

"CPL Y is an exemplary pioneer who displays a strong sense of commitment to the work he undertakes within the platoon during field pack inspections bearings and the maintenance of stores because of the fine work he produces."

"he has also displayed sense of belonging to his work."

For an organisation that claims to strive for excellence and efficiency, this sort of language is kind of a joke. But also when I pointed out to my friend that the first statement did not make sense since it says that all his fieldpack inspections and bearing are BECAUSE of his fine work (sort of a meaningless tautology), he made the following response on facebook...

 "trust me, it does make sense, just not somehow it doesn't get the msg across. LOL."

Well obviously he made some typos as well, but my point is that he did not really notice the error and (I'm guessing) imposed his own meaning onto the sentence. Probably something along the lines of: "CPL Y is an exemplary pioneer who displays fine work, showing a strong sense of commitment during field pack inspections etc..."

One can hardly blame him though. Even while noticing the structural error of the sentence I (and obviously most people) was able to discern the actual meaning that was being conveyed. Despite all the bad English dished out by superiors, it is hard to deny that most of us are still able to grasp what they are trying to tell us.

Language is supposed to be a tool for conveying our thoughts and ideas. So when we use language to communicate, how much meaning is actually embedded in the words we use?  Hermann Hesse in Siddhartha touched on this slightly I think:

"Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish."

It would seem that it is possible for meaning to be independent of the words we use. Maybe language is just a vehicle with meaning as a passenger. Yet if so, I really wonder what thoughts were truly in Hermann Hesse's mind before he chose to "distort" them in the form of the words above...