The media today seems locked in a competition to describe the events of the world to outdo each other through hyperbole. We are bombarded 24/7 with accounts of the largest disaster, the most expensive house, and corporations that are defined as “too big to fail”.
A recent example of simple language took an opposite stance to powerful effect. It came in the avalanche of analysis following the latest WikiLeaks postings of potentially embarrassing cable transmissions.
A leading English newspaper said that shame is too little a word to reflect on the reported conduct of those people ruling Pakistan after documents on the WikiLeaks website suggested that the government is ineffectual and corrupt.
The use of the phrase “too little a word” doesn’t force an opinion onto readers, but rather causes them to think beyond shame and imagine a larger concept in their own terms, and thus generates the greater impact.