Between the languages of ancient civilisations and the foibles of today’s news media, there is some distance. But if we allow for diversion, a link can just about be found.
In a search for inspiration on the theme of the “dumbing down” of modern journalism, two unrelated sources commended themselves: Jan Leeming, a British broadcaster whose news bulletins were models of serious, calm delivery, and a long-in-the-tooth former colleague with strident views on how newspapers express themselves.
At a guess, the words on Leeming’s lips in the 1980s were rarely her own. Yet she delivered them clearly and compellingly, winning awards. But that was then; in a more breathless television world, she might struggle to stay employed.
"Call me an old fogey," she said in a recent interview in London's Sunday Telegraph. "But in my day we'd have got through, say, 15 stories in a major news bulletin, but without all the arm-waving and histrionics."
If Leeming rightly deplores the way newscasting has developed into something she calls “docudrama”, her excitable successors are by no means television’s only offenders. On-screen reporters also flail their arms about, perhaps believing this somehow gives their words more authority whereas it is actually an irritating distraction.
Television journalists explain this “windmill blade tendency” as a response to the awkwardness of having to stand completely still, arms by the side.
So why not give them something to hold? It works well enough on French television. Roving reporters still speak into hand-held microphones and the effect is so much more natural.
There are other examples of television journalism plumping for gimmickry and cliché over substance. The now-routine pairing of male presenters of mature years with much younger females feels offensive on various levels. Increasingly tabloid raciness in language and imagery seems inappropriate.
But broadcasters are not solely to blame for diminishing the honourable if maligned practice of news reporting. Journalists in the printed press have annoying habits and these, too, are becoming more prevalent.
The second inspiration for these thoughts lead to a highly experienced newspaperman who says he is appalled by sloppy and all-too-frequent misuse of language. His hackles threatened to burst through the ceiling when one reporter offered mention of the “two-week anniversary” of someone’s death.
His remedy is the one least likely to be applied, given relentless decline in the teaching of the classics.
“No one with a basic knowledge of Latin would ever write such drivel,” he thunders.
No classical education should be necessary to work out that “anniversary” derives from “annus” and therefore refers exclusively to a yearly occurrence.
But there may be a ray of hope. A programme devised in the UK, with pupils encouraged to use Latin and Greek to break down English words, is producing remarkable results. University research reports an average improvement of 27 months in children’s reading age within a matter of weeks.
Newspaper-lovers can take heart from a story dating from London’s age of hot metal printing presses.
An industrial dispute involving a group of Greek-Cypriot printers threatened to disrupt production. Desperate for a quick fix, management sent a scholarly deputy editor to intervene. Whatever was lost in translation from ancient to modern Greek, enough common ground was found to ensure the paper was duly printed.
Sadly, the anecdote does nothing to address Leeming’s concerns about present-day news bulletins. But what a shame it is recalled too late to arm a classics-teaching friend with a ready riposte to the new neighbour who exclaimed: “Well, at least it’ll come in useful if the Romans invade Britain again.”
Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National