TOCKenneth WebbSeptember 01, 2022Steven Poole, Miles Taylor, Anonymous, Blowback, Word For Every day of the Year, Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, Issue Number 71, 1788, Transatlantic AllianceComment

When the English Language was at its Most Eloquent

JOURNAL

When the English Language is at its Most Eloquent

Whichever Country we are from, we all love our Native Language. Rightly so. We grow to become fond of and even in love with a second language, whose syllables, words and sentence construction we enjoy, especially when grammar construction is different to our native language.

My first language is English. It has been my tool in all my careers and yet, when confronted by Steven Poole in his superb book Word For Every Day of the Year I realise that my command of the English language in contrast to many is, quite simply, a dot or splodge on the page!

Always love your native language. It is your ancestral root, and we owe much to our ancestors in the same way that, one day, our descendants will owe much to us.

Take, for instance, this example I read this morning in the opening Chapter Four of Blowback by Miles Taylor, former chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security during the discredited 45th presidency, as well as Anonymous, the revelations by whistleblowing of just why that presidency was and remains so discredited.

Mr Taylor is quoting Alexander Hamilton, writing in The Federalist, Issue Number 71 in the year 1788.

This is as living and vibrant today in 2025 as it was in 1788. It is a guiding light, as powerful as the beacon we shine from coastal lighthouses, as penetrating as the most searching laser beams to our satellites right out to our planet’s Thermosphere.

If we believe in freedom and democracy we have no problem with the 1788 Hamilton observation.

MAGA thinks otherwise. The 57th has no thought either way. Reason and logic are beyond him. The pull of the corner of the playground is too great for him. He’s a bully and bullies always look for fellow bullies.

American behaviour in Brussels this week and now, today, in Munich tells us all that we Europeans need to know.

The 61-year-old Transatlantic Alliance is dead.

That’s good. It’s a relief. Because now, Europe and the United Kingdom can get on with life. The pond has gone. Once again there lies an enormous Ocean off our western shoreline of the British Isles and that is much how we prefer it to be.

The Statue of Liberty is limp. Bedraggled. The crown has slipped, and the flame has gone out.

Americans have a new place in which to flock as that dreaded ‘oh-no-not-that lot again’ tourists crash and bump their way across their fifty states to their brand new Gulf of America.

The new anthem… Gimee, Gimee, Gimee… Show me the money…. Jerry! I said, show me the money!!!!!!!

We are learning fast. In the foreign office briefing note of last evening’s telephone conversation between the British prime minister and the President of America, not one mention of Ukraine.

This morning, though, a very detailed brief on the superb conversation between President Zelenskey and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The UK takes the view that Ukraine will become a member of the European Union and will become a member of NATO.

There is in that brief paragraph summarising the BBC news at 1 pm today, the distinction between professional diplomacy and thuggery.

We stand by our friends and our Allies. Europe and NATO will not kowtow to the type who takes a little too literally the mantle of being the leader of the free world. That’s just an old-fashioned saying. The 45th had a good go at treading that into the mud. The 47th has made sure it is submerged below the mud.

What did Sebastian Mr Sebastian Gorka, American Senior Adviser on Counterterrorism boom out at the BBC presenter Vicotria Derbyshire on Newsnight when asked what leverage America might bring to the negotiating table…

Leverage? He boomed back with derision!

The most powerful nation on earth with twelve aircraft carriers. That’s the leverage we have!

LIVERPOOL

Steven Poole

As shown on the inside back flap of this remarkable daily companion

Principal Plate of this Journal Article is the striking portrait

of

Alexander Hamilton by John Trumball (1791).

In 1791, five New York merchants representing the Chamber of Commerce
commissioned John Trumbull to paint a full-length portrait
of the
Treasury Secretary
to commemorate
his civic and mercantile accomplishments

(Source ~ Wikipedia and World Wide Web).

Kenneth Webb

Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.

He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.

Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.

In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.