While I’m quite wary of much of the content that can be found on Wikipedia, it can be a great place to learn something completely “off the wall” and outrageous.

One gem that I stumbled across recently was a posting about the word Valspeak, something I went on to discover that I knew a lot about, even though I’d never heard the term before.

Valspeak is apparently found wherever English is spoken and is, essentially, the language that makes up the film script for Clueless, but you’d also recognise it from Wayne’s World.

I wonder, what would the state of the press be if every spokesperson religiously answered questions in this way?

e.g. Q: “So, what do you think is the future of iSCSI in the tape market?” A: “Like, duh! It’s so totally obvious!”

Hmm… maybe not. You’ll notice the apparent pre-requisite to add an exclamation mark after each Valspeak answer, a common PR pet hate - Duh! As if! Whatever!

My favourite bit of the entry has to be the section on intonation where the author references “moronic interrogative” as a key identifier for this kind of speech. Brilliant! Thanks Wiki for brightening up my afternoon.

Rebecca Wheeler