Past newsletters 2002

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Plain English update 28 June 2002

We start with the sad news of the death of Sybil Law, one of our most passionate supporters.

Sybil had worked at Scottish Power since the early 1960s and, in 1992, she worked with our staff to rewrite the company's codes of practice. She was so excited by the benefits of clear communication that she convinced her bosses that she should become Scottish Power's resident expert on plain English.

In 1995 she became the first person from Scotland to graduate from our diploma course, and she went on to train more than 400 of her colleagues to write in plain English. Her enthusiasm for plain English came across so strongly that it is common for her former students to spread the plain English message when they move on to other employers.

In 1997, Sybil chaired a team that reviewed the clarity of a Government white paper on Scottish devolution. Two years ago we named Sybil as one of our first group of Plain English Champions - our 'hall of fame' for dedicated clarity crusaders. And last year she was awarded the MBE for her services to plain English.

We thought of Sybil Law as both a fellow campaigner and a friend. We often described her as 'Plain English Campaign's ambassador to Scotland'. Our sincere sympathies go to her family, friends and colleagues.

A financial company has become the 1000th organisation to earn our coveted Crystal Mark for at least one document. Impartial Limited achieved their first Crystal Mark with their 'Reaching retirement with a pension plan' brochure.

Since we launched the Crystal Mark scheme in 1990, a wide range of organisations have earned the mark for at least one document, including:

• more than 250 local authorities;
• more than 50 housing associations;
• more than 100 insurance and pension firms; and
• more than 100 government departments and bodies.

The Crystal Mark now appears on more than 7000 different documents. As well as in the United Kingdom, the Crystal Mark appears on documents in Ireland, South Africa, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Our founder director Chrissie Maher said research showed the Crystal Mark was actually better known than the Campaign itself. 'We have reached the stage where many documents that go out to the public almost seem naked without the mark. It's very satisfying to know that so many documents have earned the Crystal Mark despite us refusing to lower our standards. In fact, the public become more demanding for plain English every year, and we reflect that when we assess documents for the Crystal Mark.'

'Time is money' the saying goes. So you have to wonder why Barclays Bank's internet business 'BarclaysB2B.com' chose to announce that:

'Following an extensive reassessment of the market economics of our business and the needs of the Barclays Group, BarclaysB2B board has decided to refocus the capabilities developed to help accelerate reduction in Barclays' own cost structure.'

when they could have said:

'We're losing lots of money so head office have shut us down.'

An opinion poll published this week found that the public's understanding of pensions is still a serious problem. Asked what knowledge they had of how their own pension worked:

• 8% claimed to know 'nothing';
• 42% said they knew 'a little but not enough';
• 36% said they knew 'as much as I need';
• 7% thought they knew 'probably more than I need to know'; and
• 6% said they did not have any form of pension.

(And 1% fell into a statistical black hole!)

We have a section of our website dedicated to plain English in pensions.

You may have read this week that telecommunications firm WorldCom ran into a spot of bother after listing around 2.5 billion pounds' worth of day to day spending as capital expenditure.

We will leave it to the American legal system to decide how and why this happened. In the meantime, we can only humbly suggest these extracts from our A to Z guide to financial terms might have been useful reading for the accountants concerned!

Capital expenditure
If you spend money buying or improving fixed assets, it is called capital expenditure.

Fixed asset
A fixed asset is one which is intended to be used for several years. Examples are buildings, machinery and vehicles.

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Plain English update 21 June 2002

We have reported on several attempts to make it easier for borrowers to compare interest rates on financial products. Unfortunately a mathematics expert revealed this week that it is almost impossible to compare the cost of borrowing through credit cards.

Robert Hunt, deputy director of Cambridge University's Isaac Newton Institute, attempted to work out one relatively simple bill. He concluded that 'to the man in the street, these things are totally impossible to work out. Even for a professional mathematician it took some time. To make a comparison between cards you would need to make all sorts of assumptions about how the cards would be used.'

Mr Hunt's experiment was prompted by a Parliamentary committee session where James Crosby, head of the HBOS group, said 'I think we should be much clearer about the interest-free period'.

The committee heard that one reason for the confusion was that three different interest rates could apply for:

• standard borrowing;
• debts transferred from one card to another; and
• withdrawals from a cash machine.

The problem was made worse by the way different credit card firms use different dates to start and finish their calculations. Ian Harley, chief executive of Abbey National, said 'If you want to have absolute transparency, you have to have standardisation of products.'

It seems the problem of baffling forms has reached high places. The United States defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently wrote a complaint letter to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) after struggling with a set of disclosure forms.

'The forms were so complex that no human being, college educated or not, can understand them,' he wrote. 'There is no doubt in my mind but that with effort, this document could be simplified down to less than one-third its length, and rewritten so it can be understood by the preparer as well as the reader.'

The OGE admitted his complaint was valid and plans to create a simpler form.

Last year we reacted sceptically to a survey that suggested most workers in Britain would give up a pay rise in favour of a better job title. A different survey, published this week, found workers would now prefer the pay rise. We'll let you decide whether this means:

• workers are fed up with overblown job descriptions;
• people are finding grand job titles don't pay the mortgage; or
• all surveys should be treated with suspicion!

Two readers of the Times newspaper shared some baffling letters from public officials this week. One read:

'If English is not your first language and you want to talk to us in another language, please telephone and tell us. We will arrange to talk to you through an interpreter.'

The second letter was just as puzzling.

'If this letter contains your correct address, you do not need to do anything. If the address is wrong, please tell us your correct details on the enclosed form.'

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Plain English update 14 June 2002

For those of you who are not football fans, we apologise for this inevitable World Cup reference!

It's bad enough when a writer produces a convoluted sentence to avoid breaking the mythical rule that you cannot end a sentence with a preposition. But British commentator Peter Drury has twice shown that it can be even more painful in speech.

'That's a moment back on which they will look.'

'He'll be concerned at the challenges up with which his team are having to put.'

A researcher has found that 'dosh' is the most common slang term for money, but that there are a range of regional favourites. The survey, commissioned by a major bank, found the favourite terms included:

• dough (Scotland);
• wonga (London);
• brass (North West);
• lolly (East Anglia); and
• wad (Midlands).

Contacted by reporters, our spokesman John Lister cynically suggested that the banks were looking at the wrong kind of language.

'Perhaps if the banks stopped baffling us with jargon, we'd be able to get a better deal for our money - whatever we call it!'

The Economic Times, India's leading business newspaper, has published an article on the need for lawyers to use plain English. The article, written by solicitor Sandeep Dave, is also available on his website at www.globallawreview.com/art26.html

Chocolate producers Cadbury have warned that consumers need to take notice of warnings about nut allergies.

A spokesman said that the warnings were now so common that there was a risk consumers would treat them as a 'cop-out', thinking they were only printed as a legal safeguard.

'This warning is not a blanket label. It's very specific. It's a genuine warning telling people with nut allergies not to eat Cadburys dairy milk chocolate bars.'

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recently looked at a range of foods which would not be expected to contain nuts. They found that 71 of the 127 products they checked contained a warning about nut allergies.

'Using 'may contain' as a blanket insurance policy has a real impact on nut allergy sufferers as they find their choice of even the most basic of food items significantly restricted.'

It wouldn't be early summer without another new edition of a dictionary filling column inches.

This time it's the quarterly update to the on-line edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. New entries include:

• bonkbuster;
• ladies who lunch;
• ready meal; and
• drive time (early evening radio shows).

Rather bafflingly, 'cool' (meaning trendy) has returned after previously being removed from the dictionary on the grounds that it was no longer fashionable.

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Plain English update 7 June 2002

From the Times this week:

Sir,

The other day, my wife returned from Iceland (the frozen-food chain-store, not the country) with a tub of the company's own-brand raspberry-ripple ice-cream. On the label, in capital letters, was the reassuring statement.

'This product has been made in a production area where no nuts are present.'

An entry from Mrs M Shrive of Mansfield in the Daily Mail's 'One-line philosophers' section this week could well apply to the causes of jargon:

'An expert is someone who can take something you already understand, and make it sound confusing.'

Thanks to supporter Dave Compton for sending us this extract from a 'help system' on a piece of software. The writer was certainly keeping their options open.

'Optional

'If you do not select Optional, this recognition criterion is considered non-optional. If you have one or more optional recognition criteria and one or more non-optional recognition criteria, Host Access checks the non-optional criteria first. If all the non-optional criteria match, the screen matches. If at least one of the non-optional criteria does not match, Host Access checks the optional criteria. One of the optional criteria must match for the screen to match. Otherwise, the screen fails to match. Note: Non-optional does not mean required.'

A committee of MPs may have persuaded a government department to simplify the wording of a regulation - but it's not quite that simple.

Earlier this year, the Statutory Instruments Committee, which examines government regulations, reported that 'It seems (a particular regulation) is drafted in an unnecessarily complex and obscure way.' The committee produced its own suggestion for a rewrite.

The Department for Education and Skills, which is responsible for the regulation concerned, has now responded.

'The Department agrees that the drafting approach suggested by the Committee expresses the point more simply and clearly than the provisions currently in the regulations although the Department would not necessarily agree that regulations 6(1) and (2) are drafted in an obscure way.'

While the Department's officials seem a little defensive, the good news is that they have promised to look at the suggested rewrite 'with a view to a possible amendment of regulation 6.'

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