1973 POSTS
Snehesh Alex Philip is the Editor - Defence and Diplomacy. With over 19 years of experience across newspaper, newswire, TV and digital, Snehesh comes with a wider approach to news that helps him bring out the nuances and undercurrents of a story. He has reported from over 20 countries and is also the youngest Indian journalist to be posted to Pakistan where he was Islamabad-based Chief of Bureau for 9 months while working with Press Trust of India. She can be reached at snehesh.philip@theprint.in and is available on X @sneheshphilip
I don’t know whether it was always like this. Or whether the use of bombast in citations and communications is a tacky habit that our armed forces have acquired only recently from the particularly unintelligent, uncultured, pseudo-Hindu mob which currently rules us.
In any case, it detracts from the real accomplishments of the appreciated human warriors.
Consider just the few below
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Excerpt: “…during an operation, his squadron equipped with…the formidable fighter aircraft, …was chosen for strike missions over a predetermined target.”
Comment: “formidable fighter”?!. is this a citation lauding the aircraft or the pilot?
Excerpt: “…he flew as mission leader of an unescorted strike package to neutralise…predetermined targets that were heavily fortified by an advanced weapon system of opposing forces.
The airspace had seamless radar cover and was defended round-the-clock by aircraft equipped with long range state of art beyond visual range missiles….”
Comment: Probably the trusted folks in PR , in their juvenile silliness, wished to elicit greater awe for the actions of the appreciated individual by first highlighting, in bold relief, the formidable capabilities of the adversary against which the former was pitted.
An average, privately employed technical writer would have done greater justice to the recognized individual.
If the enemy had “seamless radar cover and was defended round-the-clock by aircraft equipped with long range state of art beyond visual range missiles..”, how is Pakistan mistaken when it describes its capabilities similarly?
The same will be read by other armed forces too. We expect them to get impressed about us by such hazy, gaudy verse?
Coming to think of it….the use of brassy language in matters of military affairs is the norm even in the news media. And the “experts” are no exceptions (aka the self-preening, macho reporters of TV channels). Regrettably, neither is ThePrint.
Rarely is an objective, measured description of an event or a piece of equipment given, even though the need is probably more appreciable in these matters. Any feature or report…even if of a sniper rifle…is typically choke-full of vague, worthless phrases like “the deadliest”, “overwhelmingly powerful”, “the most potent”, “the most ruthless”, “devastating”.
Surely, there is vocabulary which is apt for a field of expertise. Will it be ok if doctors start giving medical opinions to similar effect? (“The heart of this patient…who has good credit…is the strongest, most thumping heart ever…”)