Forty years after Martin Luther King jr delivered his most famous speech, his words continue to resonate. One of the landmark speeches of the 20th century, “I Have a Dream” bears witness to the power of language and the significance of words. Together with ten other addresses, this speech at the march on Washington is published in A Call to Conscience.

Reading the words of that speech (and in fact all of his speeches) is revelatory for a Generation X-er like me. His overt Christianity is stunning. His turn of phrase and expression bears astonishing beauty. But what is striking is the way King uses words to persuade not perplex. His language is devoid of clichés and overstatement. Despite frequent use of imagery and metaphor his language and sentence structure is simple. Fusing grandeur with accessibility, King’s speech has an honesty and a depth that we rarely hear spoken anymore. Has something happened to the way we speak, particularly in the political forum? Have we simply become more cynical or have our leaders lost the capacity for meaningful eloquence?

The latter argues Don Watson in his bestseller, Death Sentence. And it’s not just political leaders. According to Watson, public language – the language of marketing, politics, business and even education – is in a serious state of decay.

Words are Watson’s bread and butter. The Australian writer, academic and former speechwriter (for Paul Keating) is concerned with language and communication. His interest borders on passion but he denies that he is obsessed. As one for whom words are a tool he is keenly aware that this tool is frequently misused.

Through Death Sentence, Watson criticises several aspects of public language. From the incomprehensible letters from banks to the double-talk of bureaucracy, he bemoans the shrinking of our vocabularies and the rise of nonsensical expression. He is not making an appeal for pedantry. He accepts that grammar and even definitions of words can be fluid. It is the jargon, the clichés and the ubiquitous buzzwords at which he is taking aim.

“In modern media-driven politics, words are chosen less for their meaning than for their ability to do the job.” According to Watson, bludgers have become battlers as our leaders compete for the blue-collar (or no-collar) vote. Political speeches are like marketing exercises stuffed full of business buzzwords like: strategic models, value-added, core, non-core, outcomes and accountability. And that’s just for starters.

But there is a sinister side to the misuse of language. We are a long way from the maliciously misleading “Arbeit Macht Frei (works make free / liberates) over the gates of Auschwitz’. But the US Army’s descriptions of Iraqi deaths as the enemy being ‘degraded’ or, worse, ‘attrited’, comes close.

At certain points John Howard and George W. Bush draw his ire. He deftly analyses key phrases used by these political leaders and indicates how their use of words from the axis of evil to illegals and queue jumpers is misleading and disingenuous. Nor are the media exempt from Watson’s censure. He criticises their failure to extend their readers’ knowledge and the influence of public relations over journalism. He is also contemptuous of journalist’s ready acceptance of political jargon and double-speak.

Like T. S. Eliot, Watson has special regard for the language of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Sceptical about subsequent translations and frustrated by modern marriage services, he believes there was integrity about the original forms.

“The power of the Book of Common Prayer or the King James Bible lies not in its antiquity, but in the conviction that the words convey. An atheist can still be moved, entertained and enlightened by them. … They are a perfect expression of our predicament, and that’s why they are both majestic and comforting.”

Punctuated by examples of what language can be and what it is all too often, Death Sentence is insightful and timely. Frequently funny but tinged with sadness, it is a lucid and entertaining essay. For lovers of language it is essential reading.