Past newsletters 2003

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Plain English update 26 January 2003

The European Commission is considering tight restrictions on health claims in food labelling and advertising. The rules, leaked to the Financial Times, would ban companies from claiming that products can improve 'overall good health of well-being in a non-specific way'. Firms will also have to drop claims that a product can improve concentration or mood.

If the EC approves the proposals, there will be standard definitions for terms such as 'fat-free', 'low-fat' and 'high-fibre'. Firms will be allowed to list specific health benefits as long as they back them up with scientific evidence.

Researchers at Cambridge University have found confusing terms and conditions can lead to a psychological fear of financial affairs. Dr Brendan Burchell said around one in five people could suffer from the problem. 'Financialphobes can be intelligent people who are high achievers in most areas of their lives; they are not irresponsible, feckless or spendthrifts. Frustration at the time and effort needed to make money-related decisions, as well as a lack of confidence in the ability to understand complex numerical information or small print, can lead to financial avoidance.'

Internet bank Egg sponsored the study. UK marketing director Patrick Muir said 'The complexity of some financial products combined with an individual's lack of confidence is a recipe for financial phobia.'

Cynical rail passengers in Britain (are there any other kind?) were not fooled by the language used to announce delays to improvement schemes this week. One scheme will be 'descoped'. Or to put it another way, spending will be cut from £4 million to £1 million. And another scheme is to become 'part of a longer-term vision'.

An argument about plain English has led to legal wranglings over a referendum result. The November 2001 poll saw voters in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania support plans to scrap two council seats. However, a group of voters took the case to court, claiming the ballot question had been confusing. An initial ruling two weeks ago said the referendum was invalid because no 'plain English' explanation of the question has been published. Government officials launched an appeal last week, which was still in process as we published this update.

We know from our work with many organisations in Wales that producing bilingual documents can cause design and layout difficulties. (One particularly bad case came from a utilities company that switched between Welsh and English on alternating lines of the same paragraphs). But councillors in Llandysul found a new problem this week. While a local road will have the warning 'look left' written across the tarmac, the Welsh equivalent 'Edrychwach i'r Chwith' would take 16 feet - which is wider than the road itself!

English, plain and otherwise, has been a common theme in the British press this week. The Guardian reports that staff at PricewaterhouseCoopers are running a 'Jargon Cup'. It's a weekly knock-out competition where staff vote on examples of management jargon. Apparently a recent match-up pitted 'knitting fog' against 'pushing the envelope'. One particularly baffling entry that has already been eliminated is 'There's an elephant in the room and we should draw a circle around it'.

Management at London Underground have found an intriguing way of exploiting ambiguities in language. During an enquiry into overcrowding problems, a spokesman told politicians that overcrowding was impossible because 'overcrowding refers to a situation of excess over a defined limit'.

There is no official limit on London Underground trains, so logically no limit can be exceeded. And, as the spokesman put it, any definition of a limit 'will inevitably include an element of subjectivity and semantic argument'.

And 'overcrowded' isn't the only word to be redefined this week. A proposed change to the European Union's regional development fund would mean that 'island' will no longer simply mean a piece of land surrounded by water. Instead, an 'island':

• must have at least 50 permanent residents;
• must not be attached to the mainland by a rigid structure;
• must be more than one kilometre from the mainland; and
• cannot be home to the capital of an EU state.

This would mean that the Isle of Anglesey and several islands off Scotland, such as Bute and Skye, would no longer count as 'islands' and therefore not qualify for certain financial aid packages from the EU.

'People are dumbfounded that anyone could suggest these are not islands', Ian Gillies of the Scottish Islands Network said. 'Just try and walk there.'

We often argue that plain English is not so much about picking the shortest word, rather picking the most effective word to get the message across clearly. A photograph published in the Daily Mail shows a sign in a San Diego, California zoo, which suggests the writer was keen to cover every possible message.

'Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harrass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize or ruffle the animals.'

There's no arguing with a study from the Institute for Social and Economic Research mentioned in the Times this week.

'And joblessness can be linked to unemployment...'

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Plain English update 19 January 2003

It's not unknown for Golden Bull award winners to rewrite the offending documents. Sometimes the job is already underway by the day of our awards ceremony. Sometimes it takes a few months. In one case, it's taken a little longer.

In 1993 an NHS definition of a 'bed', running to more than 300 words, won a Golden Bull. The purpose of the lengthy explanation was to make sure that trolleys used in place of beds were still counted in official statistics.

Ten years on, the definition has finally been replaced with a far briefer passage:

'A couch or trolley should be considered as a bed provided it is used regularly to permit a patient to lie down rather than for merely examination or transport. An example of such an arrangement is a day surgery ward furnished with trolleys.'

We hope none of our readers ever find themselves behind bars. But if you are detained, you don't have to let jargon confuse you. The HM Prisons website now has a guide to prison jargon. As well as official terms, it covers slang used by warders and prisoners.

There are two new sets of rules this week to make food labels clearer. The European Commission has issued a directive to tighten up the rules covering meat.

• Labels must now refer to 'meat' (skeletal-attached muscles), 'offal' or 'fat'. Previously 'meat' covered all these products.
• The label must also mention the species.
• Mechanically-recovered meat must now be listed separately and cannot count towards a listed percentage of 'meat content'.

Meanwhile the Department of Health in the UK has announced an official 'five a day' logo. This is to stop firms wrongly marketing their goods as counting towards the five portions of fruit and vegetables that people are advised to eat each day. The logo can only be used under licence, and cannot be used on processed foods.

The logo's introduction comes after nutrition experts condemned Heinz for claiming the tomato sauce in some of its tinned produce counted as a portion of fruit.

We leave you this week with a classic example of jargon-busting at the highest level. It comes from former United States president Franklin Roosevelt, and was reproduced in Florida's St Petersburg Times this week.

President Roosevelt was not impressed with a memo informing him that 'Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal Government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination. Such obscuration may be obtained either by black-out construction or by termination of the illumination.'

'Tell them,' Roosevelt told the writer, 'that in buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something over the windows; and, in buildings where they can let the work stop for a while, turn out the lights.'

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Plain English update 10 January 2003

A Government minister has warned his party colleagues to abandon 'managerial language' when promoting policies.

Ian McCartney, who chairs Labour's national policy forum, told the Financial Times that 'Managerial language is fine in its context but in communicating with people about your values it fails to connect.' He told colleagues 'Don't throw away a good idea by using language that nobody understands.'

Mr McCartney's frustration with jargon may have something to do with him being the Minister for Pensions!

We have added an extra date to our special open courses for this year. On Wednesday 14 May we are running a course titled 'Writing medical information in plain English' in London. As well as the basics of plain English, we will be looking at medical jargon, medical labelling and patient information leaflets.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has asked the public to report misleading adverts by financial firms. The FSA has powers to order firms to stop using particular adverts. In extreme cases, firms may have to write to any customers who responded to the offending advert and give them the chance to pull out of a deal if they had been misled.

You can report adverts by phoning 0845 606 1234. The FSA has also published a guide to advertising 'tricks' at:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/consumer/shop_around/advertising/index.html

A local authority in Merseyside has announced that its New Year's resolution is to give up jargon and acronyms.

Councillor Jim Keight, leader of Knowsley Council, said 'I recently received a letter from an outside organisation which had 27 acronyms in four paragraphs! We aim never to do that in Knowsley from now on.'

You might think business jargon was they way to get ahead in the world of information technology (IT). But a survey of IT employers suggests such language is the best way to make sure a job application ends up in the bin.

More than 60% of those surveyed said phrases such as 'thinking outside the box' were the biggest turn-off on CVs, ahead of unexplained career gaps, poor quality paper and irrelevant hobbies.

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Plain English update 3 January 2003

Happy New Year to all our readers. 2003 has begun quite positively at the Campaign with our mailbag containing several letters praising the clarity of various public documents. Don't forget that, while most of our publicity comes from the fight against gobbledygook, we are always interested to know when people are getting it right.

We have a question for you this week. It applies particularly to readers in the United Kingdom, but all responses are welcome.

If a referendum on the UK joining the single European currency is held, do you think it is possible to produce a referendum question that is in plain English but does not unfairly favour either side of the debate? If so, what wording would you suggest?

A letter from today's Times newspaper:

'A few weeks ago I thought it time I got round to honouring my 2002 New Year's resolution and enrolled on a computer course, only to stumble at the first hurdle when my 'module' (bit like a book, really) asked me to 'power up and access the operating environment'. It transpired that all I was required to do was to turn the damn thing on.

I've already made my resolution for 2003. It does not concern computers.'

It seems the idea of a trans-Atlantic jargon barrier is nothing new. A letter from former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to the Queen has just been made public for the first time (having previously been covered by confidentiality laws). In it, Mr Macmillan complained that then United States President Dwight Eisenhower spoke in 'strange, sometimes unintelligible, Americanisms.'

The phrase 'make no mistake about it' has been symbolically 'banned' as part of an annual list of overused words and phrases. The list, issued by Lake Superior State University in the United States, began as a publicity attempt in 1976.

Other phrases selected for this years list from around 3000 nominations were 'frozen tundra' and 'an undisclosed, secret location'.

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