"Libya is in a state of effective civil war and any Australians remaining in the country need to get out now, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd says."

"Mr Rudd said the situation on the ground would be resolved enormously if Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage simply left."
"Resolved enormously"?
One can only hope our chief diplomat's grasp of Mandarin is more 'enormous' than his English.
Is it just me, or is anyone else disgusted that professional wordsmiths should be so bad at their craft?

Interesting stuff, the beggar can not talk English
Struth bet my efforts get you upset!
He is not English is he?
Shoud da said pack yer gear bloke and get out this mob is fair dinkum.

Hi Belly, as far as I am aware, you have never claimed to be a diplomat, or a professional wordsmith.
For that matter, I ain't neither.

Hi Grim:

Don't be too hard on Kevin. Maybe he was having a "bad word day?"
As the writer Bryce Courtenay tells us: " ours is a natural alluvial language waiting to be mined. It's as Australian as a Chiko roll and as familiar as a kookaburra's raucous laugh. And it's ours to use any way we damn well please." Here's an example overheard on a Friday afternoon running late to catch the last flight out to Wagga:

"Sorry, ocker, the Fokker's chocka!"

Here's another:

"Johnno's so laid-back, he's practically fly-blown!"

Courtenay says:

"Australia's early White settlers, unlike their American couterparts who left England to the promise of a richer and freer existence, were dragged kicking and screaming from the dungeons of Newgate and the hulks of Bristol to the living death of an isolated and barren land.
They had no time to pack a copy of whatever was the equivalent of Fowler's "Current Modern Usage," at the time. Their language bore the marks of shackles and carried the inflections of the destitute and the whine of the shanty Irish. It matured in a harsh land with few of the niceties, just as those little pantaloons do not belong on the end of an Australian lamb chop, so our ways of speech are blunter than our antecedent tongue."

"Our language is laconic and often recalcitrant, but even in its lazy vowles it has a vigour; a common touch which is often not being included in much of the work of Australian writers. Too often our writers prefer to ape the English way... Courtenay points out, "If you love your words, if you try to use them well and treat them right. If you respect their functions. If you can see their colour and feel their Australian textures, the harsh sun, wide brown land of them, If you understand their constraints. If you know their weakness and are aware of their strengths, Then you're ready to be a storyteller..." But sometimes even storytellers (and politicians) run out of words temporarily.

Don't be too hard on Kevin. Maybe he was having a "bad word day?"
lexi,
I go along with that, after all words are all he's got.

Best to ignore the last comment Lexi.
However we are clutching at straws targeting him for his words, he often scrambles them.
But it is the intent that matters.
Few if any ,Australians would not agree with his intention on this issue.
Fair dinkum cobber its no flaming joking matter, a mad beggar is shooting his own mob, recon we should have a Captain Cook at that not flaming how this bloke talks what do ya recon?

Grim must be some sort of lingwist.
I don't see what's so bad about it. I got the full gist of what was meant. Did Rudd say this, or was it what you read.

lingwist.
579 ??
or did you mean linguist ?

Belly:

Loved your last post. As some wise person once said, "Man's greatest inheritance is the gift of speech." The gift of words is the gift of imagination. Some words run softly, almost soundlessly on tiptoe. Others clump around like an under-nine fottball team in a cement floor dressing shed. Some soothe like cold cream on suburn. While others set your blood pounding and your heart singing. As Bryce Courtenay tells us - "Each of us has been designed for one of two immortal functions, either as a storyteller or as a cross-legged listener to tales of wonder, love, and daring et cetera. When we cease to tell or listen, then we no longer exist as a people. Dead men tell no tales." As long as we get the message of what's being said - I wouldn't make a fuss over what words are used. I remember years ago I tried speaking in Lithuanian to an elderly family friend of my parents.
At the time my Lithuanian was rather poor to say the least (as was the old person's English). I was used to speaking only in English (having been born here). Anyway, this woman embarrassed the heck out of me by making fun of my attempts at trying to speak in Lithuanian.
As a result she turned me off completely, and it was quite some time before I even attempted to try again. I did ask her politely, "Did you understand what I was trying to say?" She did. But she didn't realize the damage that she's done to me by making fun of me. She discouraged me from trying again. There's a lesson to be learned there I guess.

cont'd ...

Oooops, my apologies for the typos in my previous post - (Individual,
people do make typos - it doesn't mean that they don't know the words).

With an open mind, open eyes and ears, open understanding heart,, life can be great.
Each morning, before logging on no matter the time I walk around my block.
Seeing my garden as it is at that hour.
I can find good or bad there as in all things.
Here I note the anti Rudd silliness and look for butterfly's hope fear and hurt at the subject of his words.
NEVER change Lexi you are a light in the darkness

Hi Belly, I'm not actually anti Rudd, in fact I quite liked the guy. I think his biggest mistake might have been trying too hard.
This has proven to be one of those self UN fulfilling prophecies; I've been seeing so many instances of poor language skills practised by so-called professionals lately it irked me into writing this post.
Since then of course, I haven't seen one.
My point was about professionalism. If I want wiring done around the house, I (generally) call a professional electrician, and I expect a professional result. Likewise plumbers etc.
I get annoyed when I go to a restaurant and get served a meal I could do better at home, because that to me shows a lack of professional skills.
Unlike novelists, I think the first priority for diplomats should be absolute accuracy. I remember not so long ago another PM who got hung up for using the word 'recidivist'; although that was admittedly pure politics, that's diplomacy hey.
I don't mind Rudd's down home homilies, even if they never sound quite sincere, and I'm certainly not inclined to apologise for being a dinkum ocker.
I just think highly paid professionals should be professional.
In this instance, Rudd was just unlucky. My normal beef is with journalists who would have failed 4th form english, in my day.

All ok Grim I found others posts far worse than any thing you said.
And in truth under stood, but did no find it worth complain about Kevin trying too hard even when talking.

I'd say that the most trouble regarding Kevin, was that he wasn't a lawyer. Those professionals obviously wouldn't work with him, and the things he tried to do to bost the amount of work for the workers, and those professionals - lawyers etc., were happy to have an excuse to kick him out. But they were very happy to have him back in to retrieve some value to the party, and as little as it was, gave them that little bit for those incompetents to crawl back with the equally bad liberals, and that is what the public recognises.