Common Craft Blog
"Bludgeoned into Submission" with a "Jumbled Assault"
By leelefever on March 30, 2009 - 7:39am
Andrew Pegler, plain English writer and editor, is frustrated by the language that dominates business and law. In "Join Winnie's War and Mind Your Language" he has harsh words for what passes as communcation these days:
As a practising plain English editor and writer, I can assure you this
battle is coming at us on many fronts, from the supermarket shelves to
our national capital. It is fed by intellectual vanity, fear of looking
dumb, pesky lawyers (of course) and a public that has been bludgeoned
into submission by its heavy, dull, self-important pedantry. This enemy
of clarity and friend of the obscurantist feeds off our numb acceptance
of it in our everyday lives.
Fight the good fight!
These jumbled assaults on my beloved English seem designed to
intimidate, depersonalise and, I suspect, divert the reader from the
fact that the writer does not really have an answer. Scratch the
surface and you are in free fall, for these battalions of nothingness
often carry no precise meaning.
Plain English as transparency. Nice.
Plain English in Business
We deal with these problems in business all the time, more in spoken word, than in written. I am from the UK, as are a good number of my clients. That itself presents communication issues at times as each area of the UK has its own unique vocabulary.
But we also have clients from other countries, and I have to be careful not to use vocabulary known only to my small section of the UK, as many of the ESL clients have never heard some of the phrases.
Great site, by the way, loved the article last week on the banning of 'jargon'.
Malcolm Mendelsohn
Great Article
The English language has become so diluted with technical jargon... Even our own kids speak in text slang. There is a great loss of communication there and we need to try and get it back. All this technical speak does is cause inefficiencies for the most part. I work in accounting, which is full of industry keywords. If we would just say it in plain English the majority of the population could easily understand the concepts.
Simple English
I think some people feel that if no one understands them people will assume they are smart. I have seen people do this with tech stuff and its pretty annoying. Its much more impressive to be able to explain things in a way that most people could understand.
It seems like the longer you
It seems like the longer you can keep talking, the longer you can convince others (and yourself) that you are saying something of interest. How sad that the succinct is suspect. I don't think it comes from the news or newspapers, as the text there is usually direct. Who started this blather? If it is technical jargon, that is odd as I always tell my technical writing students that this is business writing and they must get straight to the point.
Just the other day.....
Just the other day - you published another post on British Local Government agencies banning some Jargon. It is a really good follow-up.
Andrew is absolutely right in bringing Churchill into the picture to put his point across.
Communication must be -plain, simple and straight without any trace of ambiguity or vagueness. Only then - the so many legal battles on grounds of breaking TOS should decrease!
channeling Orwell
This seems like a modern update of George Orwell's classic essay, "Politics and the English Language" (1946). A must-read for anyone who appreciates clear writing:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
Every bit as lucid today as it was more than 60 years ago.
Another story
I think some people feel that if no one understands them people will assume they are smart. I have seen people do this with tech stuff and its pretty annoying. Its much more impressive to be able to explain things in a way that most people could understand.
The art of proper written
The art of proper written and spoken English is surely being lost, at least as far as the masses are concerned. During my time in Federal Prison I was introduced to an entirely new vocabulary and a grammar-free means of speaking. Since then I have seen the effect of SMS services and sites like twitter and facebook that demand ultra short responses. This trend in the decline of the English language is surely set to continue.
Jonathan Richards - Author and Former Federal Prison Inmate assists new inmates to be to prepare for and survive Federal Prison.
Say that again!?
I agree with the above statement:
"I think some people feel that if no one understands them people will assume they are smart. I have seen people do this with tech stuff and its pretty annoying. Its much more impressive to be able to explain things in a way that most people could understand"
My thoughts go out to two intelligent individuals, who just look ridiculous trying to "appear smarter"!
Just be humble! geez...
Plain English formatting
A good deal of the writing work I've taken on recently has been that of, what I've come to term as, "plain english formatting" a series of Work Instructions, used in the mining industry to document procedures.
They're awful things to have to wade through, but very satisfying objects for acts of literary liposuction.
What I have to add to the conversation though, is the understanding of my complicity in the process: in previous incarnations I admit to having been one of the obscuranti ...employed to write gobbledygook intended to confuse rather than enlighten, although I didn't really understand it at the time.
My understanding of the phenomenon now is that such writing is very much designed to intimidate and impress and not really to communicate much at all.
Death to that and all who practice the dark art! Long live straight talk!
Make It Understandable
A big problem is that many important documents are written in language that is not understandable by many people. This means that people just ignore it. When was the last time you read a 'terms and conditions' or did you just sign it?
In the UK, the amount of paperwork that is involved in getting a mortgage is now so big that I fear that many people just sign it without even reading, let alone understanding it.
Reach Out for the Masses!
Some people suffer from a misconception that if they use a lot of jargon in their language, written or verbal, they would be looked upon as smart professionals; this is more common among lawyers and doctors and less among businesspersons, at least in my experience. What these people don't understand that by not using plain and lucid language in their communication, they are alienating themselves from the masses. Only the exceptionally-qualified intellectuals would be able to understand them, and let's face it, the percentage of such intellectuals is even less than 30% of the world population!
I use informal language with my clients all the time and never ever got the impression that they took me for a "dumb" gal.
Marlena Burns
Some lawyers even believe
Some lawyers even believe that writing poorly is in their best economic interests. Others believe they need to write with the passive voice and punctuate each claim with ponderous case references to sound like a lawyer. They occasionally confront a communication situation in which they need to obfuscate their meaning. The best bet to win a bad case may well be to confuse the judge or jury, so they may someday face a communication situation that requires them to draft vague documents.