Past newsletters 2004

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Plain English update 27 February 2004

It seems not all legal disclaimers on websites are the work of humourless lawyers.

The 'Website terms of use' for search engine 'SearchFeast' (http://www.searchfeast.com/terms.php) are certainly a change from the stereotypical format.

For example, the copyright clause says, 'For everyone's sake, just assume that everything on the site is copyrighted unless we say it's not. So you can't use the stuff except how we say you can on this page or anywhere else on the site without our written permission. And like we said before, it's not likely we'll give you permission anyway. In fact, even if we wanted to, the lawyers are likely to veto any deal anyway. So it's better you don't even ask.'

And following the notes on jurisdication (the rules that decide which court deals with any case involving the site), the writers explain, 'If this all sounds kind of mean and undiplomatic, you should have seen what the lawyers gave to us in the first place. We had to remind them that human torture and sacrifice was outlawed in the United States. Boy, did they look disappointed.'

We have an update on our story last week about the firm Jarvis changing its name to Engenda. Professor Deborah Cameron has written to the Guardian to correct the quote attributed to her. She pointed out that she did not, as claimed, simply refer to the change of name as 'bollocks'.

She said 'management bollocks'.

There is more potentially good news from the Financial Services Authority. A consultation paper launched this week proposes that financial advisors give clients a clearer explanation of their charges. This would be in a booklet covering:

• the services provided by the firm;
• the different charging systems that are used in the industry (fees or commission) and which the firm uses;
• (if the firm uses fees) the specific charge; and
• (if the firm uses commission for any product it recommends) the maximum commission it would take on a typical range of transactions and how this compares with the market average for such transactions.

Daily Mail reader Clare Day of Northampton reported some puzzling instructions on the label of a frozen turkey breast.

'This product can be cooked from frozen. If cooking from frozen, please defrost in the refrigerator.'

And the Mail also brought readers a comment from Sky News reporter Tim Marshall, who used a mixed metaphor that raises several physical and philosophical questions.

'It's like opening a can of worms in Pandora's box.'

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Plain English update 20 February 2004

The Financial Services Authority has continued to crack down on misleading advertising. Figures published this week show that in the second half of 2003, the FSA ordered 73 adverts (from 63 different firms) to be revised. In five cases, the FSA ordered firms to write letters of clarification to any customers who replied to the advert, and to give them a chance to pull out of the deal without expense.

The FSA's consumer director Anna Bradley (formerly of the National Consumer Council) said, 'We continue to receive a steady flow of complaints about misleading advertising - from consumers, firms and our own supervisors - and we take action immediately to stamp it out.'

As well as routine monitoring, and dealing with complaints from the public, the FSA has made a specific point of looking at adverts in regional newspapers and on daytime television. TV adverts are particularly at risk of being unclear as, unlike a written document, people do not have a second chance to re-read (or re-hear) the words.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has reminded people in care homes that they have a legal right to have plain English terms and conditions.

A new OFT guide, 'Fair terms for care', says contracts should not use unexplained jargon or overly-long sentences. 'The terms of your contract should be clear enough that you should not need legal advice to understand them. It is important that you take your time to read the contract carefully. Ask to be allowed to read it before you visit the home. Don't let yourself be rushed. If you don't understand any of the words or what a term means, then ask. Make certain that you know what the care home is providing for the fees.'

With the political parties debating future 'tax cuts', the Daily Mail's Andrew Alexander brought us an explanation from 'Sir Humphrey'. It is, of course, a parody.

We hope.

'The element of acceleration which leads overall to rising public expenditure, which may or may not be maintained, would be curtailed in the expectation that any absolute rises, which might threaten to boost expenditure as a total of national income, would be comfortably maintained in those key sectors which may or may not, by election time, be subject to an acceleration - or indeed a possible deceleration - thus leaving a margin for the acceleration of expectations on the grounds that the aggregate of all sectors, whether liable at the time to acceleration or deceleration, would be within targets deemed necessary to achieve an appropriate reduction in the level of expenditure as related to the national income.

'This is to assume, of course, that the rate of growth in the national income, as currently foreseen, does not itself decelerate to the point where the higher spending element may be expected to absorb resources otherwise available for any overall tax reduction target.'

A change of corporate name has produced some extremely plain language at Oxford University.

Contracting firm Jarvis has decided to use the name 'Engenda' when it bids for future government contracts.

Deborah Cameron, professor of language and communication at Worcester College, Oxford, was clearly unimpressed.

'The new names are always Latin. That is another reason why people think it is such bollocks. The thing that is particularly crappy about it is it is fake Latin. It is dignifying a very ordinary thing with a ridiculous label.'

With so many computer error messages leaving us baffled ('Fatal exception error' and a string of letters and numbers being our most despised), we might have stumbled across a miracle this week. While using a program called Adobe Acrobat to convert a document into a different format, we encountered an error message written entirely in everyday language. The only problem is that the message is perhaps a little too honest.

'Acrobat was unable to make this document accessible and found the following oddities:

'Some difficult pages encountered.'

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Plain English update 13 February 2004

Sun columnist Richard Littlejohn wrote today about an unusual turn of phrase that came up during an interview on his television talk show. A councillor referred to 'lighting columns'.

They're what the rest of us call lamp posts.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has reported that their warnings that manufacturers should avoid using misleading terms on labels are going unheeded.

The Agency surveyed 220 products and found that 'farmhouse' and 'traditional' are the most misused terms. Three-quarters of the products claiming to be 'farmhouse produced' were made in other locations, including a 10,800 square foot factory and a meat processing plant. And nearly half of 'traditional' foods contained modern ingredients that would not have been found in the original recipe; these included an ice cream made with monoglyceride and sodium alginate.

There are no specific laws on such terms, but misleading or false claims are illegal under the 1990 Food Safety Act. In November 2002, following a two-year review, the FSA issued guidance on which terms were likely to fall foul of the 1990 Act.

Also on the subject of food labelling, the European Union is proposing to tighten the rules on health and nutrition claims. The rules, which will be discussed by the European Parliament next month, would 'eliminate claims which are misleading or difficult for the consumer to understand'. The specific proposals include:

• only allowing health or nutrition claims that pass scientific assessment by the European Food Safety Authority; and
• not allowing 'unbalanced labelling', for example mentioning high vitamin content while ignoring high sugar content.

You may remember that late last year the Treasury select committee said banks need to improve the clarity of the information, particularly when it comes to customers comparing different products. John McFall, chairman of the committee, this week urged the banks to get their skates on.

In a letter to the six biggest banking groups he said, 'It seems that progress in some key areas raised by the report, in particular displaying the cost of borrowing scenarios... and possible standardisation regarding the way interest rates are calculated, is slow. I hope there is no question of some in the industry seeking to create obfuscation around these issues rather than to seek genuine solutions which will benefit consumers.'

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Plain English update 6 February 2004

With all the baffling letters we see, it was quite refreshing to read this week of a hotel owner's reply to a complaint by a guest who had been charged extra to have water with her meal. Of course, while the letter is certainly clear, we're not entirely convinced about the tone.

'Dear Customer

'I have read your letter and feel the need to enlighten you about the workings of the modern world.

'I buy water from the South West Water Company. I buy the glasses that the water is served in. I buy the ice that goes in the water and I buy the labour to serve the water.

'I provide the luxury surroundings for the water to be drunk in and again pay for the labour and washing materials to wash the glass after you have used it, and you think I should provide all of this free of charge.

'[Your] comment that you will not be returning to the Atlantic leaves me to say that customers who only drink water and complain about paying for it I can certainly do without.'

Of course, if you don't have letters after your name, there are other ways to get attention. The Metro newspaper this week brought readers the story of a lady named Elaine who has recently divorced. She was happy to drop her married name, Armitstead, which many wits pronounced Armpitsweat. She has had her revenge by becoming a Ms and, rather than reverting to her maiden name, adopting the new surname Neous.

We liked the introduction to an article about 'service user consultations' in Community Care magazine. Joan Scott, formerly chairperson of the National Forum of People with Learning Difficulties, says of jargon:

'Why they use these big words I don't know. If they just spoke normally it would be a lot easier for everyone, not just people with learning difficulties'

A couple of weeks ago we asked for your suggested translations of the following 'project overview' sent in by one of our supporters.

'The project is structured around multifaceted incremental work plan combining novel content design based on new pedagogical paradigms blended with the e-learning environments to facilitate hybrid mode of delivery. This is combined with series of educational experiments on the target learner groups with possibilities to adjust the approach and disseminate the interim and final results.

'Our pedagogical approach is based on the educational model which assumes that the learning process is an interactive process of seeking understanding, consisting of three fundamental components: Conceptualization, Construction and Dialogue. The relevant modules of the New Curricula are mapped onto these three components and a hybrid way of delivery is investigated through different scenarios.'

Thank you for all your suggestions. We have passed them on, but we picked out a few of our favourites to share with you.

First we have a couple of summaries. This is from Nancy Wright of Uxbridge, Middlesex:

'A project of piecemeal design, various modes of delivery and results to be advised.'

And this is from Tim Tanner of the Mutual Members Campaign, Camberley:

'The project aims to try out various combinations of traditional teaching methods together with computer based learning. Each combination will be evaluated to see which works best with the target learning group.'

A slightly longer version came from Jason Walker, an NHS doctor from North Wales:

'The project involves new teaching methods including the use of computers. In addition, a number of other teaching methods will be tried on the class. We may change the course design to use some of these more often if they prove successful.

'The way we teach assumes that learning involves thinking, doing, and discussion. The relevant modules of the New Curricula reflect this.'

And we also liked this list-based offering from Graham C. Reed of the John Povey Centre for English Studies at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria.

'The project is designed around the following guiding points:

• A step-by-step work plan;
• New content;
• New teaching methods; and
• Computer-based ways of delivery.

'There is also a built-in method to check the project, for later improvements and research purposes.

'We teach with the idea that the learners and teachers are working together towards a better understanding. This process is made up of:

• Conceptualization (Forming the idea)
• Construction (Building on that)
• Dialogue (Talking about it)

'The relevant parts of the New Curricula are then applied, and new and better ways of teaching are looked at.'

The last word goes to Andrew of Rhode Island in the United States:

'We make people watch a screen and press buttons. People learn better when they get to do things. Like press buttons. Can we have the grant money now, please?'

We'll finish this week with an acknowledgement of the careful scheduling and captioning for the news in brief section of an edition of BBC 2's Working Lunch. The business show followed a story about heavy traffic being the most common cause of stress for those of working age with the news that troublesome packaging is the biggest irritant for retired people. Or, as the on-screen graphic put it, 'Jams jar... jars jam'.

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