Past newsletters 2002

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Plain English update 27 September 2002

According to new rules on food labelling, one man's meat is another man's mechanically-recovered sinew sludge.

The Food Standards Agency have worked with European Union officials to produce the new rules. The main change is that producers must be more specific about the origin of 'meat'. For example, a beef burger currently labelled as '82% beef' might instead become '71% beef plus beef fat and beef connective tissue'.

The rules may also mean that only 'pure' meat, rather than gristle or fat, can count towards minimum meat contents in products such as 'pork sausages'.

Labelling laws are also under debate in the United States. You may remember last year we reported on politician Nita M Lowey's proposed law to:

• require that food statements list in common language, what, if any, of the eight main food allergens (peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, eggs, milk, soy, and wheat) are contained in the product;
• close the additive loophole by requiring ingredient statements to take into account if any allergens were used in the spices, natural or artificial flavourings, additives, and colourings; and
• require food manufacturers to include a working telephone information number on food labels.

That proposal is still going through the House of Representatives, but a similar proposal is now going through the Senate (the upper chamber of the United States 'parliament'). The new proposal, introduced by Senator Edward M Kennedy, originally also called for a standard font, better colour contrast and an end to block capitals on labels. However, these demands have been dropped as part of a deal to get wider support among senators.

We have a pinch of salt to add to last week's story about Chinese film distributors changing titles to be more descriptive, with unusual results.

This does happen, and there have been several reports about it over the years. However, a few years ago the New York Times ran a piece jokingly suggesting some possible alternative titles. Because many news stories tend to get 'recycled', we can't be entirely sure that the examples we mentioned (which came from newspaper articles about the latest edition of 'Empire' magazine) are genuine or more of a 'tribute' to the Chinese practice.

Last week we asked for your suggested rewrites of a baffling sentence for one of our supporters in Uganda. The original version read 'Increased appreciation of and value attached to education has resulted in an increase in the demand for quality education and eventually cumulating to increased number of education institutions from primary to university level majority of which are privately owned.'

We had dozens of entries. Some were perhaps overly concise:

'Market pressure works for schools too.'

While others were, if not true to the original, certainly creative:

'Education is cool
So...If you respect your school
Demand from those who rule
New centres so that you'll
Be a Ugandan jewel...
...in the future's crown!'

Among the more conventional suggestions, we though Rosalind Poh of Singapore did the best job of simplifying the language while staying true to the intended meaning:

'Many people are begining to realize that education is important. They now want good education. This will lead to a higher number of schools, colleges and universities, most of which are privately owned.'

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Plain English update 20 September 2002

We have often seen the problems with phrases that don't translate well into other languages. But according to film magazine 'Empire', attempts to solve this problem have not worked quite as well as they should.

When marketing Hollywood releases (legally or otherwise) in China, distributors find audiences are not always familiar with the original title. Instead, the films are renamed to give potential buyers a better idea of the plot. Unfortunately the process doesn't always work smoothly.

• 'Boogie Nights', about a well-endowed man who stars in adult films, became 'His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous';
• 'The Full Monty' became 'Six Stripped Pigs'
• 'The Piano' became 'Wretch! Let Me Chop Off Your Finger'; and
• 'As Good As It Gets' somehow turned in to 'Mr Cat Poop'.

As a campaign group, we are used to getting the occasional letter from somebody who disagrees with what we stand for. Sometimes we write a polite but spirited reply. Sometimes we realise there is no arguing with some people, and simply file the letter. But in some cases there is no option but to let the writer's 'wisdom' be read in the 50-plus countries where we have supporters.

'On your 'website' you purport to have begun the Plain English Campaign in order to make people's everyday lives easier (this is not a direct quote). What you are in fact doing, by lobbying for greater clarity in legal and bureaucratic documents, is making life inestimably more difficult for the majority of people who previously were able to ignore these opaque documents or claim ignorance (legitimately) of their meaning.

If your organisation has its way we will all be forced to read, understand and act on every single contract, letter and directive we receive from petty-minded and pedantic bureaucratics.

This will, in fact, in our already busy lives, make everyday existence for the average citizen more difficult. How is this helping?

Are there not better things you could do with your time. How about a childrens charity? Or have they all been taken? I don't expect a reply to this as I'm sure you consider your activities utterly beyond reproach.'

Last week we reported on Lord Woolf's search for a plain English replacement for the Latin term for lawyers working without charge. Reader Owen Browne sent us an unconventional response.

'I think the phrase 'pro bono' should be retained to describe the lawyer who represents U2's lead singer.'

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Plain English update 13 September 2002

We reported a few weeks ago that Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, had called for the phrase 'pro bono' to be replaced. He said the term, which refers to lawyers working without charge, was not understood by many of the people that could benefit from such work.

The Institute of Legal Executives is now running a competition, to be judged by Lord Woolf, to come up with the best plain English replacement. You can e-mail entries to ctitmuss@ilex.org.uk, and the winner will get a bottle of champagne.

Around half a million people in Ireland could not follow the instructions on a packet of aspirin according to a study by the country's National Adult Literacy Agency. They found that around one in four adults have serious trouble:

• reading medical labels;
• filling in medical forms;
• following signs in health centres and hospitals; and
• reading leaflets and booklets about health issues.

The agency is now looking at specific ways for health professionals to deal with this problem.

New-style holiday brochures are making it harder to work out the real price of a holiday according to the Consumers' Association. The confusion comes because some firms now break down the package into a wider range of separate charges. For example, meals on a plane, pre-booked seats and larger luggage allowances may all involve costs added to the basic price of a trip.

Our founder director Chrissie Maher explained that we had already come across this problem. 'We start most of our plain English training courses by looking at a baffling page from a holiday brochure. We usually find every delegate comes up with a different price from the same information.

'We have no objections to travel firms giving customers more choice about their holidays. But there is no excuse for brochures that leave customers uncertain what they are paying and what they get for their money.'

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is now investigating complaints by trading standards groups about potential confusion caused by unclear brochures.

The OFT has also cracked down on misleading credit adverts this week. They ordered Courts, Comet, Powerhouse, Time Computers and Dabs.com to stop using the term 'interest free' in certain cases.

The firms had all used the term to describe deals where a customer could take goods home and pay for them at a certain date in the future without paying any extra for interest.

However, the adverts did not make it clear that, if the customer did not pay the entire amount when it was due, they would also be liable for interest back-dated to the day they got the goods.

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Plain English update 6 September 2002

On Friday 6 December, the day after the awards, we are holding a Campaign conference at the Brewery in London's Chiswell Street. The conference will feature four guest speakers.

• Mark Ashworth: A barrister and company secretary who specialises in pensions
• Gopa Mitra: Head of Public Affairs for the Proprietary Association of Great Britain
• Lord Morris of Manchester: The world's first Minister for Disabled People
• Peter Rodney: A barrister and senior legal draftsman for the Government of Gibraltar

Delegates will also be able to attend their choice of two of the following four workshops.

• Clear form design
• Plain English in legal agreements
• Brush up on your grammar
• How to write clear medical information

Tickets are £100 including VAT. The price includes lunch and refreshments. For more details, or to get a booking form, please call Jennie Eley on 01663 744409.

Researchers in Switzerland have invented a system of micro-processors that attach to pieces in self-assembly furniture and set off an alarm when the pieces are put together wrongly. Stavros Antifakos of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said people did not follow written instructions because they found them annoying.

We may have a new record for the latest sighting of the annual 'silly season summer survey shocker' from a dictionary publisher. This time Oxford University Press asked pupils aged 10 to 12 to spell a range of words designed to cover both classical and popular culture.

Having learned our lesson from previous stories about spelling and grammar, we're not going to pass comment for fear of making an ironically placed typographical mistake.

The results are as follows (the number in brackets is the percentage of children that got each word correct):

• Hogwarts (85)
• David Beckham (80)
• Squad (78)
• Defender (77)
• Battle droid (66)
• Theatre (62)
• Favourite (58)
• Eighth (56)
• Application (55)
• Shakespeare (32)
• Parliament (28)
• Edinburgh (24)
• Metatarsal (15)
• Playwright (13)
• Millennium (11)
• Mystique (10)
• Jane Austen (8)
• Personnel (7)

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