Airplane!

Presently, I am immersed in a book called "peoples and cultures of the world" by Edward F. Fischer. It deals with anthropology and therefore, with language, as an essential feature of human beings. It is structured in lectures, and in the seventh one, titled "Language and thought," it is described how language and thought influence each other. Well, in this chapter we find a very interesting extract about direct and indirect language. In direct language you express very clearly what you want, and indirect language uses lots of subtleties to communicate the speaker's intentions, it could be compared with an understatement. Bosses usually use direct language to speak to their subordinates while subordinates tend to use indirect language when speaking with their superiors. Part of this extract may easily fit in a comedy as a gag in spite of its tremendously tragical nature.

In 13th January 1982, an airplane that was to leave from Washington National Airport took off and just a few seconds later it crashed down, dying 74 out of 79 people. The reason was that ice formed on the wings of the plane because it had been waiting too long to take off after being de-iced. Then it took off, the rotors and flaps couldn't move and it crashed down. The black box recording shows a very revealing conversation between the pilot and the copilot; take note of the indirect speech that the copilot is using to communicate his concerns to the pilot:

Copilot: Look at that ice just hanging there on this... eeer back there, you see that?

Pilot: (No response).

Copilot: See all those icicles on the.... back there and everything?

Pilot: Yeah.

Copilot: Boy, this is a losing battle here trying to de-ice those things, it gives you a false sense of security. That's all it does.

Pilot: (No response).

(Then they're given clearance for take off).

Copilot: Let's check those tops again since we've been sitting here for a while.

Pilot: I think we've got to go here in a minute.

Copilot: That doesn't seem right, does it? That's not right.

Pilot: Yes it is.

Copilot: No, I don't think that's right. Mmmm maybe it is.

Pilot: 120.

Copilot: Mmm I don't know.

(And then they take off. 37 seconds later they crash down).

Probably, if the copilot had been more assertive and had addressed the pilot more directly the catastrophe would have been avoided. Anyway, it would be unfair to put all the blame on the copilot when it was the pilot who didn't bother to take into account the copilot's warning.