Impaled: Better dumb than dumb

The sentences that some radio and television presenters and newsreaders send into the airwaves often don't even seem to know what meaning they are supposed to convey. Frightened, they crouch in a dark corner of the listener's or viewer's brain and hope that no one has noticed them. Presenters, speakers and broadcasters hope the same. Many a press release and a whole host of marketing emails give the impression that they were written by deaf-mute dyslexics. Sometimes even computer-generated spam mails seem more correct and creative than unsalvageable advertising attempts from the marketing test kitchen. Compare the following two emails from my inbox: "We recommend you open pdf attached file and apply for your agent lottery prize. Yours sincerely, Management." That was the first one. The second: "Dear communication professionals, Tunisia is showing strong growth in terms of vacation destination. The situation is stable and calm. Tunisia presents itself as a hospitable Mediterranean vacation destination."

Both emails are very similar. And that is exactly what is so frightening. The first is some kind of automatically generated, babelfish-like letter garbage, while the second was written by the communications manager of the Tunisian tourist office in Switzerland, obviously with sweat and tears. Machine against man. Nevertheless, both works are on a par in terms of readability, comprehensibility and attracting attention: nothing understood, immediately deleted.

Letter mincemeat without horns

So some marketing emails are worse worded and more erroneous than the language jumble from a translation or text generation tool. Is there a way to prevent the creation of such word haché so that it no longer takes up my time in future? There is! The solution comes from the world of drugs - but not what you think. Marco Tulio López is the security minister of the Mexican colonial city of Oaxaca. And he had the brilliant idea: for the past eight months, deaf police officers have been deployed in southern Mexico to fight crime. Not because listening and holding up one's hand is now officially a Mexican investigative tactic, but because deaf-mutes are much more attentive to the various surveillance monitors in Oaxaca's police headquarters than hearing police officers. They are distracted by conversations and noises. Allegedly, the hearing-impaired detect crimes even BEFORE they are committed. Because they pay attention to the behavior and body language of suspects. Now that's something.

Calm without a storm

What does this have to do with the terrible sentences used by newsreaders and the messed-up advertising emails? Well, deaf journalists would be immune to the rampant use of "that makes sense". Their language would not be so easily infected by public gossip. Blind TV people would at least listen to themselves once and - hopefully - talk less nonsense once they had recovered. And mute radio producers would sometimes be a blessing. Or mostly.