One of the things you can rely on to lighten up your day is to listen to the news conferences of politicians. What they do with the English language is a marvel.
At home, we have our very own Kevin Rudd doing his best to broaden our appreciation of jargon and gobbledygook – a true champion in the lingo. He returned to form recently when he referred to the ‘operationalisation’ of a UN plan. And of course, who can ever forget his ‘programmatic specificity’!
But it’s hard to top the loquacious Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary of Defense. His ‘known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns’ ramble will go down as a true classic.
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
