Monday 22 August 2016

Change the record - Part 2

Further to my recent Olympics-related post, the 2016 Rio Olympics are now over and the newspaper sports supplements are full of praise for Team GB's impressive tally of 27 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals - and rightfully so. That's two more medals than at London 2012 and 19 medals than the target set for GB athletes.

As a result, we now know that Rio 2016 is the "first time a host country has increased its medal haul at the following Olympics", and that the event was Team GB's best ever Games. But at London 1908, over a mammoth contest lasting 187 days, Team GB won a whopping 146 medals. This now explains the nebulous descriptions "away Games" or "best performance at an Olympics in the modern era". Those calling it the "best ever Games" are clearly keen to dismiss 1908 as either too long ago or with too many variables, subsequent rule-changes or other differences meaning that no comparison with the Olympics of today can be made. Not that the media spend much time explaining such details, of course! Like the geek I am, I trawled through Team GB history for my own explanation.

The "best away Games" tag is simply shorthand for "best-Olympic-Games-ever-except-for-London-1908-which-went-on-for-six-months-so-sort-of-doesn't-count-really". So there you have it! I'll leave it to others to fill you in on how much each medal has cost relative to the funding for different sports, and the comparisons with China in terms of population, area and medals won. I stand corrected; Rio 2016 was Team GB's best ever away Games. Now let's hope the athletes and those whose names we don't yet know can do even better at Tokyo 2020.

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Change the record

It's perhaps only natural that my propensity for pedantry should be heightened during Olympic coverage, given that I watch television more intently than usual during this particular sporting showcase. But the gaffes made by BBC commentators are just cringeworthy.

The first slip-up came during the opening ceremony. After the Greek athletes had been led out around the track (as is usual), the commentator remarked that the subsequent order of teams was awry. It was alphabetical — albeit not alphabetical in English. Maybe since London 2012 someone has forgotten that, just like the Olympics, the alphabet is not just for speakers of English! For example, in other languages, say, Portuguese and French, South Africa (África do Sul and Afrique du Sud in Portuguese and French, respectively) comes before Andorra in the list of countries.

Other infuriating commentator calamities come when, as if the achievements of athletes are insufficient in and of themselves; the jingoistic journalists change the record to reflect some kind of first gained in addition to the gold medal. One widely reported example came when John Inverdale, claimed that Andy Murray was the first tennis player to win two Olympic golds — a claim immediately corrected by Murray himself, as he rightly highlighted the achievements of Venus and Serena Williams (who have won four golds each). Murray is merely the first person to be a double Olympic champion in the tennis singles discipline. Oops!

Inverdale inadvertently ignoring the achievements of women in the immediate afterglow of Andy's triumph only serves to demonstrate the sensitivity needed when reporting the firsts or "first gold medal since ..." stories. We've now had Laura Trott and Jason Kenny winning golds to become the "first British woman to win four gold medals" and "winner of six gold medals to equal the tally of Sir Chris Hoy," respectively. As the golden couple are getting married next month, perhaps at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, if they successfully defend their 2016 gold medals; they'll become the first married couple ever to win gold medals at consecutive Olympics held in host cities that both end with the letter 'o'! How great would that be?

My point here is that the media spin to change the record for the sake of a new 'first' often detracts from or even trivialises the sporting feats being celebrated — as first female African-American to win gold in swimming, Simone Manuel, indicates:

"The title 'black swimmer' makes it seem like I'm not supposed to be able to win a gold medal or I'm not supposed to be able to break records and that's not true because I work just as hard as anybody else. I want to win just like everybody else.''

Athletes, like everyone else, just want a level playing field, literally. Anything that stands in the way of that fairness, such as an award, distinction or epithet seen to refer to the kind of inequality we should be striving to eradicate, is unhelpful. 

This includes the infuriating phrase "away Games". Rio has already been Team GB's best ever 'away Games'. The event has been held here four times in its 120-year history. Most Olympic Games are 'away games' for most of the participants! When and how did not hosting the Olympics on British territory become such a disadvantage? Were we expecting the host nation to win the lion's share of the medals in Rio? This distinction is a huge insult to any country without the means or luck to have been allowed to host the Olympic Games as often or at all! I wonder if reporters in other countries display the same sporting imperialism to create new records and statistics in this way. 

I understand that competition is fierce — and rightly so. But journalists and content writers have an important role to play in reporting achievements accurately and respectfully, so that the public see athletes not pigeon-holed by gender, ethnicity or nationality; but rather as heroes for all humanity.       

Saturday 23 January 2016

Clarity begins at Home Office

There are plenty of linguistic things I could rant about on my first blog post of 2016. Perhaps I could poke fun at Larry Lamb and the British Council's drive to get people in the UK to learn a foreign language while UK politicians continue to do the hokey cokey on the subject of the country's membership of the EU. Rather than looking outwards and promoting the benefits of stronger engagement with our European neighbours and their languages, many of our deluded politicians demonstrate how isolationist you can choose to be if you live on an island.

At a house party over Christmas, a friend's sister excitedly told me how her 12-year-old daughter had recently shown talent and enthusiasm for learning German. Should I ever meet the 12-year-old, I have been instructed to chat to her in German - which I would be delighted to do. This is how any language-learning drive should work. Don't tell working adults with established careers, families, commitments and other distractions to learn a few phrases a day in another language - tell and encourage 11 and 12-year olds! They have more time and a stronger motivation. It is only by training them to become language graduates in a decade's time that the UK will have any hope of addressing the UK's multilingual malaise and missed trade opportunities. The sad reality, of course, is that language learning is on the wane in schools and universities and few people seem to care.

But I won't rant about that! I won't even rant about the new idea that forcing members of non-Christian minority groups to learn English will be an effective tool in tackling segregation and radicalisation. It's a confusing proposal, given that segregation rarely occurs due to language alone. Secondly, the majority of recent evil acts or excursions falling into this category were carried out by those who seemed perfectly able to speak either English or the language of the European country where they were based. I won't even highlight the plight of the many UK-based TEFL teachers who, according to writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen, have been made redundant in huge numbers over recent years - only to witness this apparent volte-face now that the political elite have suddenly decided that teaching English is a good idea, supported by £20m in funding.

I won't rant about 10-year-old schoolchildren who live in terraced houses and who inadvertently misspell the word and spark major police investigations as a result. In fact, I won't rant about anything today because I think this embarrassing error by a government department tells us everything we need to know about how important languages are in the UK.