Chrissie's blog

Dear friends

I founded Plain English Campaign out of exasperation. I was born into a large, poor Liverpool family back in 1938, and left school almost illiterate. But night school opened the world to me, and I began to see injustices.

People like me were put at a disadvantage by politicians, officials, lawyers and business leaders who used complicated language in their dealings with the public. I challenged this by setting up the Tuebrook Bugle, Britain's first community newspaper which could be understood by everyone. Then came the Liverpool News, for people with even worse reading problems.

Many more community activities followed, including starting the Salford Form Market. This project to help people understand complicated forms led directly to the start of Plain English Campaign in 1979, and to many high-profile challenges to those who continued to use jargon and gobbledygook. It is now 2006, and I am still fighting.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog.

All the best

Chrissie Maher OBE

10 April 2007

It takes a woman ... once again

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has given us hope that all is not lost in our battle to cut gobbledygook in the EU. The civil servants may not so far have given up gobbledygook for a day (see my last blog). But as president of the EU, Mrs Merkel has moved things forward. Just a bit!

She promised that the Berlin Declaration, published on the EU’s 50th birthday, would be in 'people-friendly' language.

Well it nearly was. There are a few short sentences and some clear words – but also some terrible ones, like 'inviolable, inalienable and in concert.'

Now I repeat our challenge to all the civil servants in the EU: Give up gobbledygook for just one day, as your celebration of the 50th birthday. See how you like it. Then all the documents in the EU should be written in clear language. All those convoluted sentences which baffle people – even the politicians – could disappear at a stroke.

Mrs Merkel joins some top women politicians in Britain who want plain language. As prime minister, Margaret Thatcher was a great supporter of the Plain English Campaign message. Years ago she realised that gobbledygook and the chaos it created were wasting millions of pounds. Harriet Harman, the present day Minister for Constitutional Affairs, has recently made history by introducing a plain English translation into the Coroners Reform Bill.

Angela Merkel is in good company. We wish her well, with more plain language successes in the EU. Now all women – and men – in positions of power can join these pioneering women politicians and reverse the march of gobbledygook in the EU.

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21 March 2007

Give it up for a day

They say that tilting at windmills gets you nowhere. But if you don't take on seemingly impossible battles sometimes, you don't get anywhere either. That's why Plain English Campaign has been happy to lead the demand for European civil servants and politicians to celebrate the EU's 50th anniversary by giving up gobbledygook for a day.

OK, a lot of people say it will never happen. But this is how our Campaign has built up on success over nearly 30 years. If we don't ask the gobbledygook writers to change, nobody else will. And ordinary people, in the UK and every country of the EU, will continue to be baffled by official documents.

Whether we like it or not in Britain, Europe is now important to us. We want to see it working at the basic level of communication. If Brussels makes more and more laws, then we deserve to understand what they are all about. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to get the 50th anniversary Declaration of Berlin written in 'people friendly' language.

We'll be watching very carefully to see if she has been able to make this first step. We have lots of friends in Europe also watching. These are campaigners, working as we do to help people battle with gobbledygook. It will always be an uphill battle.

But with friends like Karine Nicolay in Belgium, who says this is a great chance for EU people to change, we know we can influence things. If only a few civil servants try a gobbledygook-free day - and then become converts - this battle will be worth it.

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14 March 2007

Daily Telegraph readers join the fight against gobbledygook

Over the years, I have got used to people murdering the English language. They happily pour gallons of gobbledygook over anything they can, and turn a piece of plain language into something that would puzzle a professor.

I've been fighting the assault on plain English now for nearly 30 years. I have a great team of experts, seeking to help government departments and large companies keep their message simple.

Sometimes you despair at what people do to our beautiful language. They take the clean simplicity - where everybody can understand - and turn it into complicated, puzzling phrases that hide the message from ordinary people.

And that's depressing!

But then, something comes along to remind us that there are millions of people throughout this country and all over the English-speaking world who stand up for their plain English. They won't accept gobbledygook without a fight.

I have been thrilled to see hundreds of letters in the Daily Telegraph from ordinary readers, joining in a spirited debate about convoluted phrases, pompous language, terrible Americanisms - all the sort of things we hate.

Good for you, Telegraph readers. I think you shocked some people with the depth of your knowledge, and the depth of your dislike of these awful phrases. You know the sort of thing: a railway cancellation 'because of train resourcing difficulties'.

(It's interesting that a computer doesn't recognise 'resourcing' as a word. It suggests 'researching' as an alternative. If only the creators of such rubbish would do a bit more researching!)

But there is hope for us all. This anti-jargon fight is catching. In The Guardian I have just seen a reader's letter looking for a glossary of modern business language. Where he works, staff were asked to 'leverage our synergies'.

The fight isn't over yet. If you want to join in, you know where the Plain English Campaign is!

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7 November 2006

Allowing 'text speak' in exams does our students no good

If exam boards accept text speak in exam papers they cannot be sure that young people have the communication skills they will need in later years. So, however tolerant and well meaning examiners are being by allowing text speak, they are failing students.

I am against anything that suggests to students that it is OK to use text speak in their exam papers. Teachers, examiners and parents should all be giving youngsters the opposite message - communicate clearly, spell correctly, and punctuate properly. The ones who can do all that are more likely to get on in life.

Earlier this year, we had a bit of fun highlighting the use of text speak in valentine cards. We translated some of the better known love messages into text. Can you tell what the following means?

Shal. i compR thee 2 a sumRz da?

I'll give you a clue. Its one of the finest lines Shakespeare wrote. 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day', from one of his sonnets.

Now that is a ridiculous example, but I bet some that have been given in exam papers are even more ridiculous. The English language is too important for examiners or teachers to suggest that correct spellings are not necessary. Please, please encourage clear communication in all situations. Leave text speak to text messages. Our youngsters deserve better.

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20 October 2006

Liverpool - City of Culture

We hear more and more about Liverpool, the European City of Culture in 2008. Some people laughed at the thought, but Liverpool is my home town and I'm proud of any recognition that Liverpool gets.

I have already been in touch with the people responsible for developing a website, Liverpool in Print, to coincide with the City of Culture year. To me, culture is as much about how grassroots people have contributed to the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular community as it is about the work of writers or musicians.

Liverpool was the inspiration for Plain English Campaign. Back in the 60s and 70s, a bunch of us produced some of the first community papers in Britain, including the Liverpool News and the Tuebrook Bugle.

We did this because the regular papers and radio stations were not concerned about the lives of ordinary people. People like me who left school barely able to read.

Ordinary people got a raw deal. Half the time, they couldn't understand what was going on. The language used on everything from their rent books to the instructions on a bottle of medicine was difficult to understand. Well, over the years, the campaign has changed most of that.

The people of Liverpool have a good story to tell. They have contributed to the world accepting plain English. And if that isn't culture, I don't know what is!

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12 October 2006

If only she were real

Watching 'The Amazing Mrs Pritchard' on television brought back a little of the excitement of the early days of Plain English Campaign. Of course, Mrs Pritchard's rise from the grass roots to Prime Minister is fictional. We were real. We had to start the campaign from the grass roots. We took on big business and government, created our own publicity, and learnt to stand on our own two feet. But we got there! And on the way we converted many politicians to our way of thinking.

I'd like to think that Mrs Pritchard would support our campaign. As Prime Minister, she would certainly have given plain English a heck of a boost.

Mrs Pritchard would have been following a long line of British politicians supporting our campaign. Tony Blair and the Conservative leader David Cameron, along with other party leaders, have sent messages of support for this new website.

In the past, we had Margaret Thatcher and her successor John Major on our side. Mrs Thatcher, as she was then, was one of the first politicians to grasp that plain English meant more efficient government. It meant that ordinary people could understand what was going on. And it actually saved money because of all the chaos that was avoided.

If ever a real-life Mrs Pritchard came along, we would be ready to help her, and hoping that she was ready to help people understand more of what is going on in government.

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25 September 2006

Don't let schools fail our children

With all the money spent on schools, how can it be that some youngsters are leaving our education system virtually illiterate? We even hear that students at university cannot spell, punctuate properly or put a sentence together. And even worse, many leave university, get good jobs and still can’t write a decent sentence. As for writing a report, forget it!

Well, I’m not going to forget it. I had a hell of a struggle learning to read and write at all. The system failed me and millions of other poor kids. It was only after I left school that I realised I had to do something drastic or I would be left behind. Night school was my saving.

I would hate to think we are going back to those days. But if kids are leaving primary school unable to read and write well , and then not doing much better in secondary school, we really are on the slippery slope.

I would like to get a debate going. What’s going wrong in our schools? Not all of them have problems, of course, but there are enough to worry parents and future employers.

• What do teachers think?
• Do we need to go back to basics?
• Should there be a greater emphasis on reading and writing, especially in primary schools? (I think so.)
• Should mums and dads spend more time teaching their kids to read and write?
• How can we get pupils in secondary schools to realise how essential communication skills are?
• Could our universities put more emphasis on writing skills?

If we’re not careful, standards will keep falling. One day, people who can barely communicate in writing will be bosses in large organisations. And that’s a frightening thought.

Let me know what you think. This blog is meant to get discussions going. You can make a comment by clicking on the link below each blog entry. Perhaps together we can wake up the education experts before it’s too late.

Comments: (3)

We should not give up on our children. The problem in education is that the curriculum just isn't engaging the students anymore. It's boring to them and unfortunately probably one of the most boring subjects for children is the mechanics of language. They are not really taught the importance of communication in a way that engages them. The government - not for a lack of trying - are having a real problem finding a way to do this. (supasnapdragon66)

Some choose to blame the parents because they don't help their children enough. But it is often the case that the parents themselves cannot explain how things work because they do not know themselves. It is a massive problem with no simple answers. (bigfeet2000)

It's not that parents don't want to help their children, they just don't have the time! (cheekychops)

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18 September 2006

New website

I hope you like our new website. I’ll be writing this blog – horrible word – but I will try to think of it more as a letter. And like all letter writers, I like to get a reply. On this website there is a way for you to pass on your views and information. I hope to receive lots of both.

We are going to try to make our website one of the best. Everything we write will be in plain English (unless we are using some examples of gobbledygook). Through the website, we hope to spread our influence right across the world.

There’s a lot to go at! Too many people in Britain settle for sloppy language, where spelling and grammar no longer matter. Well that's how it seems to us. We campaign for plain English, so that you and I can understand any document we receive. Poor English is just as bad as gobbledygook, and as difficult to understand.

It’s shocking to hear that some students from abroad, seeking places in British universities, have a better command of grammar than some youngsters from our own schools. That’s something teachers need to improve.

Because of circumstances, I had a very poor education. But I was inspired as a teenager to learn reading and writing skills. How can some of today’s youngsters – and even some teachers – throw away their advantages and settle for such sloppy English? Our campaign still has many targets to aim at!

This is your website. If you like it – or hate it – let me know. As a campaign, we constantly seek your views on all sorts of issues. You can help us to have a website we can be proud of.

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11 September 2006

Spelling is important

Life is never dull in the world of plain English. New words come along and old ones disappear. New ways of using the language are always developing and arguments break out. Spellings can also change. English is an evolving language, but should we let spelling of well-known phrases change because people are too lazy to look up the words, and teachers too indifferent to correct them?

A report about the Oxford English Corpus - a database of hundreds of millions of words and phrases – claimed that dozens of familiar phrases are spelt wrongly more often than correctly. Oxford University Press found from monitoring the language in newspapers, TV and radio, books and websites that:

• 66% of people spell 'strait-laced' incorrectly, using 'straight-laced'
• 58% get 'just deserts' wrong, using 'just desserts' instead (the word desert means deserve).

• 'slight of hand' – they mean 'sleight of hand'
• 'phased by' instead of 'fazed by'
• 'vocal chords' instead of 'vocal cords'
• 'free reign' – they mean 'free rein', as in letting a horse loose.

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4 September 2006

Europe takes up the plain English message

Europe is listening to and learning from Plain English Campaign. I have spent most of my adult life fighting gobbledygook in Britain. And now, dare I say it, Europe is beginning to get the message that plain language, whatever language, is best for everybody.

Getting the plain-English message into Europe has been one of the most important things we have ever done. Europe now plays a bigger part in our lives. We must be able to understand what their laws and regulations say and mean, and the same applies to our friends in other countries. Plain language is the only way that can happen.

We have been at the forefront of encouraging other countries to set up their local plain language campaigns. A conference at our offices brought delegates from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands. They were all keen to develop their ideas under the EU's Socrates programme. Another conference took place in Sweden in spring 2006.

Campaigners in Belgium were among the first to realise that plain language could help people with learning difficulties. A unique plain-language newspaper, Wablieft, with its easy-to-read format, has inspired moves towards a plain-language movement.

Karine Nicolay, one of the leaders of the Belgian campaign, said: "We learned about Plain English Campaign's years of experience. Rather than have to start from scratch, we asked PEC to join us at our launch conference and teach us all the do's and don'ts."

The torch we lit in Britain has now been handed to our European friends. Meanwhile, the fight against the gobbledygook that still swamps so many EU documents goes on. Perhaps now, the European leaders will realise they have a Europe-wide campaign going on and will take more notice.

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