RSS feedI love the power of language, particularly how we’re able to sculpt and mould it in ways that strongly effect people’s opinions and emotions. Taking a negative and turning it into a positive, is probably the most commonly attempted deception, if I can call it that, but is also usually the most poorly executed.
Our wonderful channel 7 Olympic Cycling commentators are a great example of this. Who on earth would even think of trying to use Australia’s recent dominance in cycling as the proof that we’re not a bunch of drug addicts? Yet I’ve heard at least four commentators all say something similiar to:
Let the doubters be proven wrong.
…or…
Australia’s cyclists have redeemed themselves.
In one case, they obviously figured it best to instead let one of our gold medal winning cyclists continue this quite deluded logic:
Commentator: So what do you say to all those pepole who doubted this team?
Cyclist: Mate, it just shows you, we’re clean, and it doesn’t get any better than this!
What? Was logic just chucked into the ol’ sharps bucket with all those vitamin syringes? And what’s with that anyway? If someone asked me if I wanted a vitamin C shot, more likely I’d just stick with the tablets thanks.
I’m not saying that our cyclists are all doped up to the eyeballs, because like any sport, we can’t detect every drug, and we don’t really know who is using what. Sure, I was one who said bring them all home, but maybe just perhaps, by slaughtering all comers, they’ve finally redeemed themselves? Nuts.