Moving forward

Maybe it's because words have been such a part of my working life, but I have a real dislike of popular phraseology.

``Moving forward'' is a particular pet hate of mine. Unfortunately its use went into overdrive today when the Prime Minister announced the August 21 Federal Election.

I first started ``moving forward'' at my former workplace when middle management types cottoned on to the phrase. They seemed to think it made them appear more progressive and intelligent than they actually were. They spent a lot of time talking about ``moving forward'' but in actuality they never went anywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the idea of making progress, looking to the future, evolving, developing ideas or embracing growth, advancement or improvement. It's the glib use of words in meaningless verbiage which irks me.

Why not just say what you mean rather than spit out the poorly chosen words frequently used by others?

In a similar vein, why is it that Julia Gillard was noted as Australia's first female Prime Minister? Wouldn't it be more correct to refer to her as our first woman Prime Minister? I'm hoping someone can set me straight on this. My train of thought is that a woman is the term for a female human being. There can be a female dog, pig, cat, bird, etc but a woman is a human who is female. If there is a grammatical reason why female is used rather than woman, please let me know.

As for ``moving forward'' it will be interesting to see what unfolds in the next five weeks during the election campaign. Maybe Australia will even get its first elected woman Prime Minister!