Past newsletters 2004

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Plain English update 30 April 2004

We have often written about our admiration and sympathy for the translators working for the various organisations in the European Union. Documents produced by a political and administrative system are often far from clear, and trying to convey the same meaning in another language is surely a challenge. In fact the European Commission's translators have their own informal campaign, 'Fight the Fog', which urges writers and speakers to be as clear as possible in the original language and avoid using too many similes and metaphors. We don't know how true the story is, but apparently a German commissioner's suggestion that a meeting was progressing at the pace of a hedgehog was translated as "This meeting is slow, ponderous and full of pricks."

The difficulties are about to become even greater.

With the expansion of the European Union tomorrow (1 May), the list of official languages used by politicians and civil servants will rise from 11 to 20. This takes the number of potential combinations of languages to 190. In practice, the translators use a relay system to cover all possibilities. A speech in English may be dealt with first by a translator who speaks English and German, and then passed on by a second translator who speaks German and Swedish. The expansion led to one of the least-expected sentences ever to appear in the Guardian:

"If you know anybody who can translate from Maltese to Finnish," says [translation] head Karl-Johann Loennroth, "please let us know."

In the United States, Memorial Day marks the traditional start of summer. In the United Kingdom, we have our own sign: the first appearance of a story concerning new entries to a dictionary.

The first to make the headlines this year is the Oxford English Dictionary, with a series of 'Hinglish' words: Hindi terms that have become popular in the UK. They include:

• gora (white person);
• chuddies (underpants);
• Angrez (an English person); and
• badmash (bad or dishonest).

But this isn't necessarily a new trend. Words such as bungalow, shampoo and thugs all have Indian origins. Jeremy Butterfield, editor-in-chief for Collins dictionaries said people objecting to these phrases on the grounds of linguistic 'purity' were misguided. 'English is a mongrel language and always has been.'

When we are editing documents, we will occasionally find ourselves debating the use of "and/or" with a writer. In our experience, it tends to confuse rather than clarify, and will often be ambiguous. But we discovered this week that such an objection is far from being a 'new-fangled' idea as some people claim.

Writing in Lawyers Weekly, Judge Mark P Painter revealed that a court in Wisconsin had condemned the phrase in 1935. The state's Supreme Court concluded that "[W]e are confronted with the task of first construing 'and/or,' that befuddling, nameless thing, that Janus-faced verbal monstrosity, neither word nor phrase, the child of a brain of someone too lazy or too dull to express his precise meaning, or too dull to know what he did mean, now commonly used by lawyers in drafting legal documents, through carelessness or ignorance. . ."

(Janus-faced means two-faced or hypocritical.)

Film-writers can win £10,000 of lottery funding if they learn the art on concise writing. The UK Film Council Development Fund is running a competition where writers must pitch their idea in 25 words or less.

The shortest winning-entry so far was for Castle Rock by Julian Unthank, who simply wrote "A medieval Home Alone".

Other winners include:

Me and My Frog by Ashley Pannell ("In a musical take on the frog prince, a high school beauty makes a pact with a talking frog to save her crumbling social life.") and

Subterrania by Peter Hodge ("When the world's largest bank builds an impregnable office complex deep underground to ward off terrorism, nobody expects it to cave in trapping everyone inside.")

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Plain English update 23 April 2004

We've often accused people who use needlessly complicated language of trying to appear intelligent (at the expense of clarity). But according to a leading American university, they may be failing in such an aim.

The Stanford University study says people who use complicated language when simple words will do tend to be viewed as less intelligent than those who use a more basic and understandable vocabulary. The study found this applied even to 'academic' writing such as postgraduate applications, sociology dissertations and translations of the philosopher Descarte's writings.

"I think it's important to point out that this study is not about problems with using long words, it's about problems with using long words needlessly," lead study author Daniel Oppenheimer explained to the Reuters news agency. "If the best way to say something involves using a complex word, then by all means do so. But if there are several equally valid ways of expressing your ideas, you should go with the simpler one."

He added that most writers were unaware that readers judged intelligence in this way. He gave the example of college applicants adding complicated language to application essays to impress the reviewers. If the school rejects their application as a result of the heavy-handed writing, the student may not realize why. "The student might even think that the reason was because he or she didn't obfuscate enough."

Cosmetic labelling could become clearer under proposed safety rules. The Department of Trade and Industry has published a draft copy of what will become the Cosmetic Products (Safety) Regulations 2004. The proposals include the following changes.

• 26 ingredients which could previously be listed as simply 'perfume' must now be specifically mentioned in ingredients lists. (This is intended to help allergy sufferers in particular.)
• If products are intended to last for more than 30 months, the labelling must include a standard 'open jar' logo and details of how long they can be safely used after opening.
• Any particular safety warnings for the product must appear on the container or packaging.
• Labelling must be 'visible, indelible and easily legible'.

The proposals will bring three European Commission directives into British law.

We are planning to respond to the consultation so if you have any comments on these proposals (or the subject in general) that you would like us to pass on, please let us know.

Another week, another survey. This one, of 340 small and medium-sized UK businesses, showed 51% thought computer and telecommunication sellers were the worst offenders for jargon among people they dealt with professionally. Lawyers came second with 28%, while public relations agencies were picked by 11% of those questioned.

It's not just a case of jargon being irritating: more than a quarter of people said jargon had caused them to make "incorrect purchasing decisions".

Apparently the Inland Revenue has found a new problem with tax-avoidance schemes (unlike tax-evasion schemes, these are legal ways of reducing tax bills): tax advisors are baffling them with complicated language and legal jargon.A

spokesman said "A small number of promoters will, we expect, expend time and money in trying to disguise the scheme under layers of detail - so promoters will be expected to comply by providing a plain English description of the scheme."

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Plain English update 9 April 2004

Ireland's minister for Europe has warned that a lack of plain English could seriously damage the European Union (EU). Speaking at a conference to discuss communication in Europe, Dick Roche said: "If citizens are not better informed about, and engaged in, the EU, the future of the union itself could be threatened."

According to Mr Roche, the EU needs to:

• introduce plain language and anti-jargon measures;
• simplify and improve forms;
• set up an agency to audit forms (which, for example, would identify any duplicated or otherwise unnecessary forms);
• simplify legal texts; and
• develop a code of administrative practice.

Our spokesman John Lister told the BBC World Service that now was a particularly important time for such measures. "With the expansion of the EU this year, the number of official languages will rise from 11 to 20. EU translators estimate they will work on around two million pages this year. Documents need to be clear in the original language to allow the translators to work to their full potential and give every EU citizen the clear information they deserve."

Back in the spring of 2002 we reported the following news:

"British laws say that where a company lists prices in a catalogue, they must always state whether the price includes VAT. One firm we came across recently seems to resent doing this, choosing to stretch the law to its limits. Computer firm Inmac has written the words 'All prices exclude V.A.T. at 17.5%' at the bottom of the page in 1.5 point text. This is so small that you can fit roughly 48 letters in an inch.

"While it is legal for a brochure aimed at businesses to print prices without VAT, a 'prominent' notice saying VAT is not included must be printed."

We had some good news this week when a reader told us the latest edition of the catalogue carries the same notice in 8 point text. This is still smaller than ideal, and the notice is not exactly "prominent", but at least the firm is moving in the right direction.

Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times wrote this week about the refreshing honesty and clarity of an introduction to an annual report by a Nordic construction company. The chairman began by saying: "I measure my own and NCC's success by looking at the bottom line of the income statement. The figure for 2003 indicates that we were unsuccessful."

(It's particularly refreshing to see the term 'bottom line', mentioned by several of you in our irritating phrases survey, being used in its correct context!)

Builders have been warned to take care using slang when they have colleagues from overseas. The Construction and Industry Training Board issued the guidance after finding that up to 20% of builders in the UK speak English as a second language.

The advice, described as "common sense aimed at keeping workers safe", gives particular emphasis to avoiding irony, and explaining common safety warnings. A building consultant quoted in the Scotsman newspaper said "At the moment, if you shout 'Duck!' on a building site in London, half of the workers would throw themselves to the floor and the other half would look up at the sky."

We often speak on radio programmes about the different styles of clear and unclear language. Sometimes we worry about being too general and perpetuating stereotypes (United States as the home of euphemisms, India as the place for grammatically flawless but overly-formal writing and so on). But this week we read a story that reassured us that the image of Australian speakers as sometimes being brutally plain does have some basis.

The government department has launched an official telephone service for reporting cases of illegal entry to the country.

Its official title is the "Immigration dob-in line".

If you thought you'd heard the last of euphemisms for redundancy, think again. To join "downsizing" (later revised to a less negative "rightsizing") and people being "ICEd" (involuntary career event), we have heard a new one: to be "decruited".

In last week's newsletter we forgot to mention the one phrase from our irritating cliches survey that was specific to one country: the British term "diamond geezer". Several readers have asked us for an explanation (while a journalist in Florida encouraged his audience to pretend Diamond Geezer was a fashionable British rock music group).

In Britain, a "geezer" is a term used for males in general, but can specifically mean those who are a little "rough around the edges" or unrefined; it's usually used as a simple statement rather than making a judgement. "Diamond geezer" qualifies the term and shows that the man concerned is, for any faults he may have, extremely good-hearted, reliable and loyal to his friends.

The term's status as a cliché is shown by the way few writers can describe any situation involving the East End of London without at least one diamond geezer!

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