This is (hopefully) the first in a series of posts mocking and analysing ‘Spinglish’, the native tongue of the modern politician (You may remember Spinglish from when it first appeared on this blog in August). When there’s enough, I’ll collate these posts into a full-fledged Spinglish reference site. Feel free to create your own Spinglish definitions and translations and email them to me (or post them to your own blog, if you have one)! Many thanks to Charlotte Gore for helping me flesh out the idea, and indeed the definitions.

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“And in these uncertain times, we must be, we will be, the rock of stability and fairness upon which people stand.”
     – Gordon Brown, September 2008

“Now we also know that these are uncertain times, there are challenges ahead. The global economy is facing its biggest test in more than a decade. It demonstrates so clearly that, yes, there are huge opportunities from globalisation – but there are big challenges too. Especially today.”
     – Alistair Darling, February 6th 2008

“I would venture that, in these uncertain times, it is even more important for people everywhere to come and learn about the work and the principles of the United Nations.”
     – Kofi Annan, November 7th 2002

“It can never be more appropriate for this country to take on such responsibility than in times of uncertainty and doubt; sticking firmly to principles of freedom and inclusion, and eschewing protectionism and isolation.”
     – William Hague, February 4th 2009

‘In these uncertain times’? What these times are uncertain about is, usually, left to the imagination of the audience. It’s also unclear why these times are less certain than times gone by – as any good weather forecaster would attest, making predictions always involves a degree of uncertainty. The intended message of this phrase is that where once the speaker was blessed with the ability to forsee the future, their confidence in the inevitability of events-to-be has now departed.

The purpose is clear: to make the listener feel uncertain, doubtful and ever so slightly fearful about the future. The listener, in this anxious state, becomes a little more open to whatever course of action the Spinglish speaker proposes to reduce that uncertainty. In this way it is much like the phrase ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’ – a call to consider outlandish actions which would be rejected were the times ‘more certain’.

Whilst this may seem to make the phrase a fairly dangerous one, in all the above examples the intended action is also rendered in pure Spinglish: becoming a ‘rock of stability and fairness’; facing up to unspecified ‘big challenges’; learning about ‘the work and the principles of the United Nations’. In each case, the Spinglish is used in order to justify further use of Spinglish – a marvellous feature of this unique and beautiful language which allows a speaker to continue for many minutes without actually saying anything at all.

So, ‘these uncertain times’ may be a phrase to watch out for, but it is still most often used innocuously. If ever you come across it in the wild, we recommend you inform the speaker that if the times are so uncertain to them, perhaps it is time they invested in a watch.