Past newsletters 2002

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Plain English update 25 January 2002

A minister has admitted the Government spends less than half a penny a year for each person to keep the public informed about the European Union.

The figure was revealed during a debate in the House of Lords this week on a proposal to send a plain English leaflet explaining the Treaty of Nice to each home in Britain. Foreign Office minister Baroness Symons said the idea was impossible because of the 'budget for public diplomacy on the European Union; in other words... what we have in the kitty for informing the public on these issues. We have £250,000, with which we manage to fund a huge range of projects - targeting those who know the least about the EU, giving them information, and trying to stimulate debate.'

According to the latest government statistics, the population of Britain is around 59.8 million. This means the £250,000 budget represents just 0.41 pence for each person.

Our founder-director Chrissie Maher said it was no wonder the public feel out of touch with European issues. 'I'll leave it to the political pundits to decide why this budget is so low. All I know is that without plain English information, ordinary people don't stand a chance of having an informed opinion.

'Our supporters, both for and against closer involvement in Europe, tell us that the subject should be one of our top priorities. We will do whatever we can to make sure that everyone, from members of the European Parliament to Tony Blair himself, makes the effort to give the public plain English information. But even if we win the battle for hearts and minds, the Government are going to have to crack open the piggy bank.

'We are all affected by the European Union. We all need clear information about it if we are to have a democratic voice. In my opinion, that little bit of democracy is worth more than a ha'penny a year.'

When is an offer not an offer?

According to the Times city diary, one firm (Carnival) didn't want to be too bold in offering to buy another firm (P&O Princess).

So they made a 'proposal to make a preconditional proposal to make a conditional offer'.

BBC Radio Humberside gave us a call this week to see if we could translate the following job advert from the local newspaper.

'Hull cityvision INVITES EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST.

'The objective of this brief is to commission a project to create operational synergy between community development, learning and economic activity. The aim being to develop a sustainable and inclusive delivery mechanism to promote progression from community development/capacity building initiatives to non accredited and accredited learning initiatives and economic activity (i.e. lead people into work).'

We think it's something to do with training people to help them get jobs, but we do feel sorry for anybody who expresses an interest in that particular paragraph.

It seems there is now a standard measure for confusing material - is it easier to programme a video recorder?

A survey last May showed that financial brochures were harder to understand than the manual for a video recorder. And a survey this week has found the same holds true for more than 90% of people when it comes to food labelling.

The survey suggested the problem was caused by both the sheer amount of information on labels, and the lack of understanding of nutritional terms (a problem for 78% of those questioned).

Meanwhile a team of researchers at Leeds University have suggested till receipts could include a figure for the total fat content in a trolley-full of groceries. Joan Ransley, director of the public health nutrition unit at Trinity and All Saints College, said 'Individual food labelling is very helpful but it doesn't give you a picture of what your whole diet is like. Our idea is that the till receipts show you the cumulative amount - and you start to see larger figures.'

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Plain English update 18 January 2002

There are many forms of gobbledygook: legalese, council-speak and financial jargon among them. But there is only one that Plain English Campaign has ever found acceptable: Unwinese.

The language's inventor, 'Professor' Stanley Unwin, died this week at the age of 90. He was a South African-born comedian who worked on British radio and television. He was inspired to make up the language after his mother tripped up and claimed to have 'falloped' - a mixture of fallen and flopped.

In one sketch he gave a bizarre commentary on a football match. 'There's a great gathering round one goal mode as the net is folloped flat: what a clean groyle there as they kicking it on the bocus and the mable . . . all these people doing a very fine suffery in the cause of sport.'

Unfortunately it seems many writers over the years have failed to realise Unwinese was meant to be a joke!

A housing group has been rewarded for its plain English documents.

'soha', which owns nearly 5000 homes in South Oxfordshire, won the 'best external communications' category in a contest organised by the National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association and the Housing Corporation.

Judges praised the group's annual report, which had earned our Crystal Mark, saying 'When thinking about value for money, we were extremely impressed by how much information they managed to cram in, the style of the report, and how accessible it was.'

If you work in education and you are fed up with jargon, a contest from the Guardian newspaper will help you let off steam.

All you have to do is come up with the funniest name for a school using education jargon. Send your entries to: Launchpad schools competition, Guardian Education, 119 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3ER

Thanks to electronic publishing we no longer have to wait until the summer for the annual barrage of new editions of dictionaries with controversial entries that guarantee publicity.

This week staff at the Oxford English Dictionary revealed some of the 10,000 words added to the website edition. The new words appear dated, which is because of the time it takes for a word to become established enough for researchers to include it in the dictionary.

The new entries include:

girl power;

kecks (trousers);

comper (a person who makes a hobby of entering competitions; and

karoshi (a Japanese term meaning death brought on by overwork or job-related exhaustion).

British women who are considering cancer screening now have a chance to get crystal-clear information to help them decide whether to go ahead.

Two leaflets, produced by the National Health Service and the Cancer Research Campaign, explain what the screening can and can't achieve, and cover the problem of false results.

The leaflets, covering screening for breast and cervical cancer, have both reached Crystal Mark standard. They will be sent with all invitations for screening, but you can also see them at www.cancerscreening.nhs.uk.

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Plain English update 11 January 2002

Financial jargon could be costing the financial industry around £10 billion a year.

The figure comes from a survey by National Savings, which found that one in five people admit they had planned to put money in a savings or investment scheme, but had been deterred by unclear information.

The survey also found 65% of people found financial language confusing, while 36% thought the situation had got worse during the last year.

Gill Cattanach, commercial director of National Savings, said 'As an industry, it is our responsibility to solve the confusion caused by the use of financial jargon.'

The Financial Services Authority (FSA), the government's money regulator, has warned that financial jargon is causing problems for customers of 'with-profits' policies. These are policies such as pensions or investments where part of the return comes as a share of the company's profits.

The FSA's research shows that 'consumers often find the complexity of language used in product literature confusing and difficult to understand. Similarly, a consumer holding products from different companies may encounter different terms which, in practice, can have the same meaning. This is particularly the case for charges where companies use a range of different terms often with limited or no definition to describe them.'

The Authority is now asking for views on whether rival firms should use standard terms and phrases when describing their products.

'Surgical strikes', 'synergy' and 'bots' (short for robots) are among an annual list of misused, overused and useless phrases.

The list has been released by staff at Lake Superior university, Michigan each New Year's Day since 1976.

Among the phrases condemned for redundancy this year are 'totally unique', 'possible choices', 'foreseeable future' and 'sworn affidavit'.

A Financial Times columnist has called for the abolition of jargon to be a New Year's resolution for the finance industry.

According to Deborah Hargreaves, 'It should not be too much trouble to present product descriptions in plain, clear language that spells out the risks, potential return and charges.

'The worst sort of jargon is the euphemistic kind that uses fancy or complicated terms to describe something unpalatable.

'What about market value adjustor' This is the penalty we pay for leaving a with-profits fund early, so why not call it an exit penalty?

'So come on all you insurers and fund management companies, let us call a spade a spade.'

According to a government body, 'ridiculous levels' of complexity are one of the main causes of pensions gobbledygook.

Malcolm McLean, chief executive of the Pensions Advisory Service (OPAS), said 'Public confidence is at stake and must be restored. Governments have failed to tackle the pensions issue. Complexity in the pension system is now at ridiculous levels.'

He said a main cause of the problem was that pensions regulations were not 'practicable, workable, comprehensible and written in clear English'.

The problem with pensions abbreviations is perhaps best demonstrated by a new book, titled 'SSAS-SIPPS-FURBS'.

(The title stands for 'small self-administered scheme', 'self-invested personal pensions' and 'funded unapproved retirement benefits scheme'. The A to Z of pension terms on our site gives full explanations.)

Another letter from the Times newspaper for you this week.

'Sir,

Having recently considered applying for a new credit card, I felt I should do the right thing and reacquaint myself with the Terms and Conditions under the Credit Act 1974. Where better to start than with the General Notes?

18.1 Even if you have no right to cancel this Agreement under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, you will have the same right to cancel this Agreement, and the same responsibilities if you cancel this Agreement, as if you have a right to cancel this Agreement under the Act.

Is it just me?

Yours faithfully

RH Fuller'

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Plain English update 4 January 2002

If you've been floored by baffling instructions on flat-pack furniture, the law could be on your side.

Since New Year's Day, a European directive has been in force in Great Britain covering consumer goods. The Department of Trade and Industry's wording says:

'If installation forms part of the contract of sale, incorrect installation of the goods by, or on behalf of, the seller is deemed to be equivalent to lack of conformity of the goods. This also applies if the product is incorrectly installed by the consumer due to a shortcoming in the installation instructions, providing the product is intended to be installed by consumers.'

In plain English, this appears to mean that if your self-assembly goods do not work because you cannot follow the instructions, your legal rights are the same as with any other product fault. We look forward to the first attempts to get a refund over this problem.

The latest batch of crackdowns by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has seen various examples of legal jargon removed from contracts.

Enforcing their powers under the Unfair Contract Terms regulations, OFT officials have forced a range of firms to stop using terms such as 'indemnify', 'E&OE' and 'tort'.

The OFT has also produced a guide to terms which are acceptable or unacceptable in tenancy agreements. The guide mentions that organisations such as Plain English Campaign can help in producing clear documents, saying that 'In practice, contracts produced or revised with [such groups'] assistance give rise to relatively few concerns about contractual fairness.'

Lessons in clear speaking could join reading and writing in English classrooms.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which decides what children learn, have admitted that the spoken word does not get as much emphasis as the written form. Teachers have suggested this is because they have to concentrate on the national tests in reading and writing skills.

Our spokesman John Lister told radio listeners in Leeds and London that the move could help the plain English cause. 'We always say to write the same way you would speak, so clearer speech could improve written communication. We're pleased to see education bosses agreeing that it's not just a case of increasing spoken vocabulary, but making sure children know to pick the most precise, clear word for the occasion.'

Chrissie Maher, our founder-director, added that this shouldn't be used as an opportunity to get rid of regional accents and dialects. 'Quite frankly, I'd rather get a dose of electrocution than elocution! The important thing is to make sure that however we speak, the message gets across clearly.'

And now the first self assessment story of 2002...

The infamous adverts featuring the Mrs Doyle character from the 'Father Ted' television series have been voted the most annoying of the year.

For some unimaginable reason, millions of self-employed people who are forced to battle through the baffling forms under threat of fines for making mistakes did not appreciate being nagged to 'go on go on go on' and start the task.

Also on the list was an advert for a hair conditioner involving an American barrister. In her natural tone, she claimed to have 'the urge to 'erbal'. The British public's irritation at her apparent 'dropped h' (the American pronunciation) suggests the producers failed in the basic task of considering the audience.

From The Times letters page this week:

'Sir,

I bought some mushrooms. They are described on the box as:

'Mushrooms cultivated on a substrate from extensive agriculture which is permitted in organic farming during a transitional period.'

This must be Euro-speak, but what on earth does it mean?

Yours faithfully,

David Reith'

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