Past newsletters 2002

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Plain English update 26 July 2002

One of our readers has suggested an unconscious politicial bias against the Labour party in recent editions of our weekly update. This worried us as one of the principles of our campaigning is to avoid any involvement in party politics. After all, Chrissie Maher has had the public backing of both Margaret Thatcher and the Socialist Worker newspaper over the years!

We can promise you that any apparent bias is unintentional. By the nature of politics, Labour's use of language will come under greater scrutiny because, as the party of government, their actions have a greater effect on our daily lives. But we are always looking for crimes against clarity by any party.

By way of proof, we bring you the curious case of the Conservative shadow cabinet reshuffle. Party Chairman David Davis left his post for a new role as the shadow of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott; a move most saw as a demotion.

Asked if his former chairman 'jumped or was pushed', Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith 'explained' that 'The reality is we all went forward together.'

And it's not just the political parties that have caught the buzzword craze. Keith Waterhouse of the Daily Mail commented this week on the way the use of 'quality' as an adjective had apparently been adopted by some of the striking council workers. They were demanding 'quality pay for quality work'.

A committee of MPs has warned that the self assessment tax system remains too complicated for ordinary people.

A report by the Treasury Committee quoted the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland as saying 'the tax calculation guide (even in its simplified version) is a confusing document than can baffle the most experienced professional tax specialists.'

Another tax expert said 'the tax calculation could be used as the entrance exam for MENSA'.

Although sustained campaigning has prompted the Inland Revenue to try to simplify the self assessment form, the sheer complexity of the tax system continues to limit their efforts.

A case in the consumer section of the Guardian this week showed the dangers of conflicting interpretations of apparently unambiguous phrases.

A reader complained that he had purchased a rail ticket from the Stansted Express service with the destination 'London Terminals'. He believed this covered his intended journey: from Stansted Airport to Victoria (a large London station, which he believed to be one of the 'London Terminals'). Because there was no direct service, he followed a Stansted Express leaflet's advice to get off at Tottenham Hale and then go on to Victoria by London Underground.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at Victoria, an inspector declared his 'London Terminals' ticket invalid. Stansted Express operators said the term 'London Terminals' meant 'any London destination that does not involve the tube (London Underground)'.

Collins English Dictionary defines 'terminal' in the railway context as 'a point or station usually at the end of the line or a railway, serving as an important access point for passengers or freight'.

In this case, while many stations in London meet the dictionary definition of 'London Terminals', the Stansted Express definition means that Liverpool Street is the only major station it is possible to get to on a 'London Terminals' ticket.

Of course, had the ticket said 'Liverpool Street' in the first place, the case would never have arisen.

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Plain English update 19 July 2002

We are setting up a specialist department to tackle the growing problem of gobbledygook in European Union issues. And we are asking our supporters to help decide which types of document to concentrate on.

The department is headed by Peter Rodney, senior legal draftsman for the Government of Gibraltar. His experience includes:

• implementing European Community directives;
• advising the House of Commons Select Committee on European legislation; and
• advising judges at the European Free Trade Area Court in Geneva on drafting in a plain English style.

The new department is represented in the UK by our company secretary Peter Griffiths. The department will lobby politicians and other European Union officials, and will work to simplify documents that affect the public.

Our founder director Chrissie Maher said the department was needed because of the growing influence of European issues. 'I've lost count of the times I've been told that you 'must do this because of the EU', or 'the EC won't let you do that'.

'We're not concerned with the rights and wrongs of each political issue. That's for the political system and democracy to decide. But we demand plain English explanations of every issue that affects us. Torturous and incomprehensible documents have no place in our daily lives.

'We'll be concentrating on documents written in English, but we hope the new department's work will encourage every writer in the European Union to get their message across clearly.'

We are asking the public to send in examples of any unclear or baffling document concerning European Union issues. The new department will use this feedback to decide which types of document need to be tackled first.

We have a new publication in the free guides section of our site. 'The plain English guide to forms' is a concise set of hints and tips for producing effective application forms.

The contents are taken from the special training course on form design, which we are next running on Tuesday 19 November in London. For more details, please call our training manager Helen Mayo on 01663 744409.

We always tell people to choose the appropriate language for their intended audience. According to political whispers this week, Education Secretary Estelle Morris has taken that advice to heart.

David Charter, chief political correspondent of the Times, reported that Ms Morris had used 'new Labour' language when appealing to Tony Blair for more funding for education. She allegedly sprinkled the conversation with references to 'beacons of success' and 'centres of excellence'.

However, in a separate discussion with Chancellor Gordon Brown, she preferred socialist terms such as 'targeting investment' and 'closing the skills gap between rich and poor'.

The tactics obviously worked; the Education Department will now get an extra £12.8 billion of funding.

When we scan through the Financial Times each morning for any stories concerning plain English, we usually stop around the point when the pages begin to have more numbers than words. However, we were baffled much earlier than usual this week. An advert placed by Railtrack PLC detailed an extraordinary resolution with a range of measures, one of which was to:

'sanction and approve every modification, abrogation, variation or compromise of, or arrangement in respect of, the rights of Bondholders considered to be necessary by the Trustee to give effect to this resolution (whether or not the rights arise under the trust deed dated 3 April 1996 (the "Principal Trust Deed") and made between the Issuer and the Trustee or the supplemental trust deed dated 2 July 1996 (the "First Supplemental Trust Deed") or the Second Supplemental Trust Deed) and assent to every modification, variation or abrogation of the covenants or provisions of the Principal Trust Deed, the First Supplemental Trust Deed or the Second Supplemental Trust Deed involved or affected by the implementation of this resolution, such modification, variation and abrogation to be effected by a deed (the "Third Supplemental Trust Deed") supplemental to the Principle Trust Deed, the First Supplemental Trust Deed and the Second Supplemental Trust Deed;'

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Plain English update 12 July 2002

An independent review for the Government published this week recommends greater use of plain English in medium- and long-term savings products such as unit trusts and pensions.

The review by former Lloyds of London head Ron Sandler found that 'wide use is made of technical terms which are largely incomprehensible to the layman and, in many cases, may not even mean the same thing when used by different providers.'

In a letter to Chancellor Gordon Brown, Mr Sandler warned that 'The savings marketplace is generally daunting for the consumer, with much jargon and a vast range of subtly differentiated products. Information on underlying costs and performance is often opaque - or even, in the case of many with-profits products, entirely absent.'

The review called for all customers to get plain English warnings that:

• a salesmen may only be able to advise on particular products;
• products may not be suitable for people in particular circumstances;
• products could put involve risking the money invested;
• there was no guarantee the product would produce a particular amount for the investor; and
• products would not be appropriate for people wanting to save for less than five years.

Mr Sandler also suggested a range of ways to simplify the products that were sold, in particular by tackling the regulation and taxation involved.

Our spokesman John Lister said 'By encouraging more straightforward products, the review should take away one of the main excuses for financial gobbledygook. A straightforward product does not need small print full of 'ifs, buts and maybes'.

'Nobody is asking for all financial firms to offer an identical service with brochures that resemble an infant-school reading book. But firms can't hide behind a spider's web of hidden surprises and get-out clauses. Any firm that fears consumers making an informed choice doesn't deserve to be in business.

'We hope the industry, the Government and the Financial Services Authority will now work together to turn the Sandler Review's talk into action.'

The Treasury and the Financial Services Authority have promised to study the report and draw up plans for action - but they won't start work until September, and no proposals are expected until next year.

Last week we asked for your opinions on how to interpret a judge's ruling in a case in Maryland in the United States. The case involved attempts to stop a college cutting down some nearby trees to build a path. The disputed part of the ruling said:

'It is further ordered that Montgomery College be, and is hereby, enjoined from cutting any of the trees in Jesup Blair Park that were upon the property donated by Violet Blair Janin at the time of her death.'

We asked which of two possible interpretations you thought was correct:

1. Violet Blair Janin donated the property when she died. Any trees that have ever been on that property are protected.

2. The only trees that are protected are those that were on the property when Violet Blair Janin donated it (that is, when she died).

The final tally saw 19.6% for option 1 and 80.3% for option 2.

Interestingly, those picking option 2 were far more likely to explain or justify their decision.

The most common reason for picking option 2 was the use of the word 'were' in the phrase 'were upon the property donated...' Several people commented that this was the only thing that 'gave away the answer'. It was also suggested that an appropriately placed comma might have been a useful clue!

Several people commented that the simple answer would be to ask the judge. We should have mentioned that the people involved in the case have already done so, but the judge refused to explain further, claiming his ruling was already clear enough!

So what can we conclude from this exercise? If anything, a straw poll of this type is likely to be biased towards people finding the correct interpretation. The people who responded knew exactly which part of the ruling was potentially ambiguous. And because they are supporters of Plain English Campaign, people who responded were more likely to have a good ability to decipher the intended meaning.

When we test documents on a sample of the public, a misinterpretation by 20% of those questioned would certainly signal a problem with ambiguity. Bearing in mind the nature of this survey, and the particular audience used for the testing, we can safely say there is a significant lack of clarity in the judge's statement.

Aside from the linguistic issue, the environmentalists seem to have widespread moral support - and one of our supporters suggested a compromise of building a scenic path winding through the trees!

This is from parliamentary correspondent Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail:

When Miss Hewitt sat down [having explained that 'we have discussed how best we can deliver on the strategy so that we have action,'] a Tory MP spoke for the whole House. 'Hooray!' he said. The poor fool's optimism was misplaced, because we now got a junior minister called Nigel Griffiths.

Mr Griffiths does not so much talk as distribute words. They shoot out of his mouth with a random quality like sparks off a firework.

He started talking about 'work-space basic skills brokers'. Perhaps he meant 'teachers'. And then there were 'skill seekers' training programmes' which I think we used to call 'apprenticeships'.

An elderly woman in the public gallery fiddled with her hearing aid, presuming it must have gone wrong. A colleague to my right inquired: 'What language is he speaking?'

It was... maybe a rare dialect of Prescott.

We like to keep you warned about new pieces of jargon, so if anyone is lucky enough to deal with the Common Agricultural Policy, look out for the phrase 'decoupling'. It means removing the direct link between the payments farmers receive and their production.

Finally, a special thank you to the computer company that sent us the following unsolicited advertising message by e-mail this week:

'The Perception desktop authoring application Assessment Manager has had the facility to bundle an assessment, the questions referenced by the assessment, the graphics and multimedia files referenced by these questions, and the template files referenced by the assessment into a single archive file. These archives are called Qpack files. Qpack files could be re-imported by the desktop Assessment Manager, providing a convenient method to transport a complete assessment from one Perception authoring installation to another. With the release of Perception Server version 3.2.0, the Browser-based Authoring application BBA Assessment Manager now also has the facility to re-import Qpack files, allowing the import of whole assessments and related items directly into a Perception Server installation. This feature will be particularly useful to organizations that have remote authors who wish to access the full functionality provided by the desktop authoring software, but who also need to then transfer their assessments, questions, graphics and templates to an organization's central Perception Server installation to which they do not have direct file access.'

We won't be buying the product (whatever it is), but we'll gladly assume the firm are nominating themselves for a Golden Bull award...

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Plain English update 5 July 2002

The Office of Fair Trading has given clear advice to consumers in two new leaflets covering the Unfair Contract Terms regulations (which include a requirement for plain language.

In 'Unfair tenancy terms - don't get caught out', the OFT writes:

'Terms of your tenancy agreement should be written in clear language and should not use:

• legal jargon or words with special meanings you don't know about;
• difficult words you don't understand; or
• long complicated sentences.'

And in a leaflet about contracts with health clubs, the OFT says 'Agreements should be clear. You should not need legal advice to understand what is contained in them.'

An education reporter from the Guardian tried to strike a blow for plain English last week. After seeing that Professor David Melville, vice-chancellor of Kent University, planned to give a speech titled 'The FE/HE interface', the reporter suggested the title might be considered jargon.

Unfortunately the move backfired. The Professor responded by changing the title to 'FE-HE collaboration: The New Agenda'.

Also from the Guardian this week is the following letter:

'In addition to World Cup vocabulary, there is also the matter of syntax. Among many Bon Motsons, we now have the pronoun/verb/noun construction. Thus, 'Brazil are in the final' is: 'They're in the final, Brazil.' Quite a lad, Motson.'

If you've ever considered our corporate membership scheme, but found your organisation is not big enough to take advantage, we may have the solution.

We now offer three special packages, aimed at:

• small businesses (fewer than 50 employees);
• single departments of local authorities or universities; and
• sole traders and partnerships.

The packages have the same benefits as standard corporate membership; the only difference is in the amount and type of training included. This difference is reflected in a lower charge.

If you would like further details of these packages, please call Tony Maher on 01663 744409.

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