Re: “Councillor should have used better language,” letter, Feb. 8.

The writer bemoans the use of the term “that sucks,” used by a city councillor in response to the proposed closure of the Crystal Pool on B.C.’s first Family Day, wishing for a more “erudite” response, a “more intelligent remark from an elected city official.”

I disagree. After decades of listening to vague and meaningless political double-speak, where the realities of our daily lives are cut, pasted and diminished by the same tired, overused and convoluted jargon over and over again, the simple directness of “that sucks” is refreshing.

In 1946, George Orwell wrote in an essay titled Politics and the English Language that “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.” Too often politicians turn, Orwell continues, “instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” Which sucks.

Nancy Davies

Sooke

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