Past newsletters 2003

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Plain English update 29 August 2003

You are probably familiar with the 'SOLD: Subject to contract' signs that appear outside houses.

One of our supporters wrote to us this week to say he had spotted a new variation reading 'SOLD: Subject to Concluded Missives'.

We've had some baffling e-mails over the years, but one this week left us totally puzzled:

'I am contacting you about cross linking, I am interested in plainenglish.co.uk because it looks relevant to a site that I am the link manager for. The site is about US Navy Seals products including; Navy Seal training, workout videos, manuals, survival gear, Luminox watches and fitness books.'

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Plain English update 22 August 2003

An American medical journal has warned British doctors to avoid potentially offensive slang in medical notes. According to 'Ethics and Behavior', doctors based in hospitals in London and Cambridge have uncovered terms such as:

• departure lounge (geriatric ward);
• house red (blood); and
• PRATFO (patient reassured and told 'to leave').

However, it seems that doctors aren't afraid to poke fun at themselves and their colleagues, with terms such as:

• Freud squad (psychiatrists);
• guessing tube (stethoscope);
• gassers (anaesthetists); and
• slashers (general surgeons).

Scientists at two universities in Scotland have developed a speaking barcode scanner that reads out information on food labels.

'TELE-EYE' reads out information on:

• package volume or weight;
• food ingredients, including translations of scientific names;
• nutritional information such as calorie and fat content; and
• warnings on ingredients that may cause an allergic reaction.

The scientists, based in Strathclyde and Dundee, are testing the product in a local supermarket. The shop's owner, Colin Landsburgh, said 'We get one thousand customers per day in the supermarket and TELE-EYE is already proving to be very popular. Virtually every elderly customer complains about product packaging, in particular the illegible small-print.'

Professor John Cummings, nutrition expert at the University of Dundee, explained that the problem of small print on labels was particular serious for some shoppers. 'Unfortunately the people who most need access to nutritional information are often the ones who can't read the labels. Visual impairment and special dietary requirements often go hand in hand, in diabetes for example.'

The scheme is part of a project, funded by the European Commission, aiming to make consumer packaging more accessible for elderly shoppers and those with disabilities.

The chief executive of a major communications group came up with an intriguing phrase this week. Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP said the advertising industry appeared to be 'climbing out of the bath'.

It turned out he was referring to a previous speech where he predicted revenues would fall quickly, stay low for a long time, and then quickly rise to their previous levels. Displayed on a graph, this slump would be shaped a little like a bath.

You may remember last week one of our supporters had the following baffling message from the National Parking Adjudication Service (NPAS):

'A motorist may only appeal to NPAS once they have first made formal representations against the Penalty Charge to the issuing Council. By paying the penalty charge you have relieved the Council of any further responsibility to consider or formally represent your representations, thus allowing you to appeal. Therefore, for you now to be able to do so you would need to discuss this matter with the Council.'

After complaining, our supporter received the following 'clarification' this week:

'Looking back at what I wrote, I accept that I inadvertently used the word 'represent' rather than 'reject' in the main paragraph and I feel if you substitute the latter for the former (as surely most people would be able to do), the paragraph makes perfect sense.'

Strangely enough, our supporter disagrees...

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Plain English update 15 August 2003

An infamous phrase from 'insurance small print' has inspired a film starring Billy Connolly. In 'The Man Who Sued God', he plays a fisherman whose boat is destroyed by lightning. When his insurance company refuses to pay out because it is an 'act of God', he goes to court to claim the damages from God.

The film opened in Australia in 2001 but its UK premiere this week has sparked debate about the phrase. Although it has certainly appeared in policy wordings in the past, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers said 'The insurance industry does not officially recognise the term `act of God'.'

One of our readers sent us a message from the National Parking Adjudication Service (NPAS). It has a particularly rare quality: the more times you read it, the less certain of the meaning you become.

'A motorist may only appeal to NPAS once they have first made formal representations against the Penalty Charge to the issuing Council. By paying the penalty charge you have relieved the Council of any further responsibility to consider or formally represent your representations, thus allowing you to appeal. Therefore, for you now to be able to do so you would need to discuss this matter with the Council.'

The issue of unfamiliar language appears in some strange places, but we never expected to see it featured in a Fred Basset strip! For those who haven't encountered Fred, he is a basset hound featured in a comic strip in the Daily Mail newspaper in the UK. (Each day's cartoon later appears in many newspapers worldwide.)

Today's edition begins with Fred displaying a puzzled look as the words 'Hey Sam, watch my ollie' and 'Cool, look at my pop-shove it' appear from the distance. In the second frame he peeks over the fence as the words 'What about a kick-flip then, Dave?' appear.

In the final frame we see two youths performing stunts on their skateboard. Says Fred: 'It's all gobbledygook to me!'

A reader has come across a pretty extreme example of somebody tailoring their writing for specific audiences. The medical reference (aimed at doctors) for a particular product includes the following phrase.

'The oral transmucosal delivery system is formulated as a white to off-white compressed powder drug matrix attached using edible glue to a fracture resistant radio opaque plastic handle.'

However, the patient information leaflet simply refers to 'a lozenge on a stick'.

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Plain English update 8 August 2003

Concerns about clarity have prompted the Japanese government to limit the number of foreign-based words used in official documents.

Japanese speakers use many adapted versions of 'borrowed' words, written with a special lettering system called katakana. However, the state-run National Institute for the Japanese Language has surveyed 13,000 Japanese citizens to see which of these words they understand.

The research found greatly differing levels of understanding for different terms. For example, 92 per cent of people recognised 'sutoresu' as meaning stress, but a mere 2.2 per cent understood 'osenthishithi' (authenticity).

The Institute has produced a list of 52 words to avoid in official writing, such as 'keisu sutadhi' (case study) and 'impawamento' (empowerment). The Institute's president Matsuro Kai, quoted in the Times, said the aim was to improve clarity rather than to eliminate foreign ideas or culture. 'We get scores of phone calls asking meanings of [imported] words, especially from elderly people. We suspect that the careless use of foreign words is hindering smooth communication between generations.'

Parliament's Treasury committee has urged credit card companies to speed up plans to introduce 'honesty boxes' on written agreements. The boxes would be a clear display of the most important terms and conditions, which are normally spread throughout the small print. The idea is to make it easier to compare different cards on offer.

Rumours suggest the major credit card companies have agreed in principle to introduce the boxes next year. However, committee chairman John McFall says this isn't soon enough. 'There have been discussions for some time as to how to address these problems but not enough has been done. I want the industry to bring specific proposals to the committee in September, so that we can get a public commitment from the main issuers at a hearing in October to a way forward.'

A couple of quick corrections to recent newsletters:

• To settle the 'wine vs spirits' debate, Sherry is a fortified wine.
• Miles Richardson is a research officer at the University of Derby, not Derbyshire. (Ironically a bus for the University passes our offices every day.)

We cannot comment on suggestions that the former error led to the latter...

The BBC website runs a regular feature with examples of unusual excuses offered by railway staff for cancellations and delays.

This week one contributor told of an announcement that a train was delayed 'due to technical technicalities'.

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Plain English update 1 August 2003

A research officer at the University of Derby has created a formula for measuring the complexity of flat-pack furniture assembly.

In his paper 'Identifying the task variables that influence assembly complexity', Miles Richardson says there are seven things that affect the difficulty of assembling a particular piece of furniture. They are:

• the number of parts;
• the number of fastenings (such as screws);
• the number of fastening points (such as screwholes);
• the variety of parts;
• whether the parts will fit together in more than one way;
• how many times you need to select a part; and
• how easily it is to visualise the product.

When asked by the Guardian to put together a bathroom cabinet to demonstrate his formula, Mr Richardson came across another problem.

'There's a problem with these instructions' he said three minutes into the exercise. 'There's a lack of clarity.'

It seems the jargon-ridden world of pensions is still leaving millions of people baffled by options. A survey for the Department of Work and Pensions found 46% of people asked said their knowledge of pensions amounted to 'little or nothing'. Most people either had an unrealistic expectation of what they would get when they retired, or simply had no idea.

Although two-thirds of people had heard the term 'stakeholder pension', half of these did not understand anything about the system involved.

It's not just we commoners who get caught up in arguments over the meaning of words. According to the Telegraph, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles have disagreed with the Austrian government about the nature of a recent visit to the Salzburg Festival.

The pair were 'officially welcomed' by the Austrian president and attended an 'official reception' for the festival. However, a spokesman for Prince Charles was quick to point out that 'this was not an official visit. It was a private visit.'

Officially the reason for this important distinction is that an official visit would be organised by the Foreign Office and paid for with public money. Unofficially, the Telegraph believes an 'official' visit would raise the question of Ms Parker-Bowles' officially 'unofficial' status.

We heard of an interesting twist on the misuse of jargon this week. Discussing attention deficit disorder and autism, Professor Priscilla Alderson of London University said many parents are hiding behind medical jargon to excuse their children's bad behaviour.

We have heard about the following clause before, but weren't entirely sure the stories were true. But while completing an on-line form to order a computer we found that the careful lawyers really do get everywhere.

'Question 4: Will the product(s) be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, i.e. nuclear applications, missile technology, or chemical or biological weapons purposes.'

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