The voice of Plain English Campaign

Plain English Winter 2014

Boris talks sense shock!

Normally a contender for one of our ‘bad’awards, Boris Johnson stunned us this year bysticking up for clarity in Westminster. Wethought his comments, made during aninterview with Evan Davis, were worthy of our2014 Plain English Communicator award. Wecan only hope his suggestions are taken onboard. Here are examples of what he had tosay on the need for MPs to speak plain English.

“I think one thing that is incredibly importantis to try to speak ...and I fail totally on thisand I catch myself endlessly on the radio...you’re waffling and blurbling and using allsorts of endless Latinate words in exactly thatway. What people listen to are short AngloSaxon words that readily correspond to someobject in the universe that they can identify.So in other words talk simply, use plain Englishand talk about stuff in the real world.

“What’s going on is that politicians are usingcomplicated words and concepts in order topolyfilla over a difficult bit in the argument andthat’s what cheeses people off ...because theycan detect that ...they can spot it...and theywant to hear it put more simply and ...I meanI’m a terrible offender myself ...I know I doit...I try not to ...but if you want to be heardyou have to speak plainly and I believe thatcompletely.

“That is I think at the heart of much of theproblem...it’s a problem of language and it’s aproblem of style but that reflects anunwillingness to be honest about the issues.

“People want to engage in the argument, andyou can’t engage in the argument if it’s cloakedand swaddled in a load of waffle that nobody canget to grips with.

“I would much rather be understood and muchrather get my case across than just to sort ofjazz everything up in a lot of meaninglesswaffle.”

Russell’s brand new jargon

Making considerably less sense in 2014 was ourFoot in Mouth winner Russell Brand, who had anawful lot to say, most of it half-baked gibberish.Russell had a ‘Revolution’ to promote, whichseemed to us a fair bit nonsensical, vague,poorly edited and, of course, over-reliant onjargonistic, insubstantial waffle. Here’s a classicbit of Brand from 2014.

Photo: copyright – Featureflash

“This attitude of churlish indifference seems likenerdish deference contrasted with thebelligerent antipathy of the indigenous farmfolk, who regard the hippie-dippie interlopers,the denizens of the shimmering tit temples, asone fey step away from transvestites.”

CrappleApple recently launched their ‘Apple Watch’ tomuch worldwide interest, and it’s a typicallysleek product from a great, innovativecompany. Though Apple’s Senior Vice Presidentof Design, Jony Ive, was a little too creativewhen describing their latest device.

“The digital crown is a remarkable inputdevice,” Ive said. “It fluidly zooms into apps. Itenables nimble, precise adjustment. Andcritically, you can use it without obstructing thedisplay.”

What Jony Ive might have said, instead of‘digital crown’, is ‘knob’, but ‘knob’ is obviouslyfar less exciting. Nonetheless, that’s what he’stalking about.

Ive went on to describe the watch as having“…a custom-designed chip that integrates manysub-systems into one remarkably compactmodule, which is then completely encapsulatedto protect the electronics. It’s essentiallyminiaturizing an entire computer system onto asingle chip.”

PC Mag’s Will Greenwald’s take on what Appleare offering is dismissive.

“System-on-chip (SoC). What he describes isan SoC. It isn’t a new feat of engineering or abreakthrough in semiconductors, it’s just anSoC. It’s like saying, ‘unlike other companiesthat use microprocessors, we’ve created adevice that houses millions of transistors in asingle tiny square.”

Ive then mentions that a ‘simple leatherclassic buckle references traditional watchvocabulary’.

As Greenwald says, “More syllables does notmean more significance. It’s a leather bandwith a buckle, and a metal pin in that bucklegoes through a hole in the watch band tosecure it once you’ve found a proper fit. It’slike nearly every other leather watch bandmade since clocks first were strapped towrists, because that’s how clocks were firststrapped to wrists.”

Greenwald captures our thoughts on the wholething perfectly when he states:

“Obfuscating every little element withunnecessarily long words that sound smarterthan they actually are seems wrong. It’s theworst kind of jargon: the kind that takesconcepts that could be accessible and readilyunderstood by customers and puffs them up tomake them seem magical when they’re not.”

An independent report written for theDepartment for Work and Pensions by a formereconomic adviser to the Treasury has seriouslycriticised how the Government imposes benefitsanctions.

The report, written by Matthew Oakley,suggests that poor communication and areliance on legalese and jargon leaves the morevulnerable claimants unable to understand whythey have been affected or what they can doabout it.

Hardship payments, potentially a lifesaver forthe hardest hit, are not being claimed as thelanguage used to explain their availability isconfusing and unclear, the report suggests.

Letters sent out to those having money takenfrom them ‘were, on the whole, found to becomplex and difficult to understand’.

“Actual and sample letters that the review teamsaw were hard to understand (even for thoseworking in the area), unclear as to whysomeone was being sanctioned and confusinglylaid out.”

The report also describes the letters as‘particularly difficult for the most vulnerableclaimants to understand – meaning that thepeople potentially most in need of the hardshipsystem were the least likely to be able toaccess it’.

Matthew Oakley deserves great credit for hiswork, and we can only emphasise theseriousness of his findings. As he says:

“No matter what system of social security is inplace, if it is communicated poorly, if claimantsdo not understand the system and theirresponsibilities and if they are not empoweredto challenge decisions they believe to beincorrect and seek redress, then it will not fulfilits purpose. It will be neither fair nor effective.”

The Government benefitsas claimants miss out

Naomi Campbell for "I love England,especially the food. There's nothing I like morethan a lovely bowl of pasta."

London Mayor Boris Johnson for hisremark on the BBC news quiz programme,'Have I Got News For You'. "I could not fail todisagree with you less."

Former United States Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld for comments in a pressbriefing. "Reports that say that somethinghasn't happened are always interesting to me,because as we know, there are known knowns;there are things we know we know. We alsoknow there are known unknowns; that is to saywe know there are some things we do notknow. But there are also unknown unknowns —the ones we don't know we don't know."

Hollywood star Alicia Silverstone for hercomments quoted in the Sunday Telegraph.

"I think that [the film] 'Clueless' was very deep.I think it was deep in the way that it was verylight. I think lightness has to come from a verydeep place if it's true lightness."

Our 35th Plain English Awards

The very best of Foot in Mouth over 35 years

Former England football manager, SteveMcClaren, for the following comment he madeto Radio 5 Live.

“He (Wayne Rooney) is inexperienced, but he'sexperienced in terms of what he's beenthrough.”

We’ve heard an enormous amount of utternonsense in 35 years. We’ve shared with youwhat we saw as the best of it, since westarted life in 1979. We were rarely thankedfor our well-intentioned focus on the mostmealy-mouthed gibberish from each year, butwe hope that you found, and continue to find,our celebration of the worst in waffle at leastamusing.

Trying to pick the best from all those years isimpossible, but here are a few of the morememorable Foot in Mouth winners.

It’s hard to believe that 35 years of PlainEnglish Campaign have already passed. It’s alsoincredible to consider those things we’ve helpedto change in that time and the battles we’vewon for those previously snubbed and sidelinedby unchecked jargon and gobbledygook. We’reproud to have led big changes in communicationright across the board – from benefit forms tobank accounts, and instruction manuals tomedicine labels.

We will continue to provide the benchmark forclear communication in English. We will alsofurther strengthen our ties with many of theworld’s leading organisations whileremembering those doing great plain Englishwork on a smaller but no less valuable scale.We pay tribute to the latter once again in thisyear’s awards. Such work is vital and often onlyseen by those very few who are reliant on it.

habits. We also know that ambiguous orover-complex language will always be useful tothose keen to keep their message away fromthose who often depend on such information.

Unfortunately, we haven’t managed to kill offjargon and gobbledygook. Many do and willcontinue to rely on it to deceive themselvesand others. We will, though, as we do thisyear with our 35th selection of awards,continue to highlight the worst examples ofjargon and gobbledygook. We know that badlywritten documents and confusing terms andconditions are no accident. We remain asource of help for those struggling to get theirmessage across in an accessible way, andthere is never a good excuse for retaining bad

Here’s to the next 35 years of taking the worstoffenders of nonsense to task for their failure tocommunicate properly, and for hiding behindour old foes – jargon, gobbledygook, legalese,waffle and an overall lack of clarity andaccessibility for all. And here’s to everyonecontinuing to keep to our principles for thebenefit of all.

Plain English Campaign 2014

An easy read guide to motor neuronedisease

An introduction to motor neurone disease

These are clear, well-written guides on a difficultsubject.

How to Speak Money makes plenty ofsense out of a typically incomprehensibleminefield and provides valuable, entertaininginformation on a difficult subject.

Simple conversations to keep your childsafe from abuse

These booklets are excellent, clever, attractiveguides for keeping children safe.

Handle with care. A guide to keeping yourbaby safe

Plain English StandardBearers

Winston’s Wish, the charity for bereavedchildren, and Age UK deserve a specialmention for continually reaching exceptionalplain English standards. They have onceagain achieved the levels of clarity,attractive and accessible design and overallexcellence that we now consider ourbenchmark. Well done to our 2014 PlainEnglish Campaign Standard Bearers.

Children’s Guide to Fostering

Excellent guides written to help children andyoung people understand fostering.

John Lanchester – How to Speak Money

Young Persons’ Guide to Fostering

Annual report and accountsThis report is colourful and well-presented withgreat use of white space and clear, well-placedtext.

Steven Poole – Who Touched Base inMy Thought Shower? A Treasury ofUnbearable Office Jargon

‘If modern office jargon makes you want tothrow up, this book is for you.’ It was definitelyfor us, and we’re delighted to award StevenPoole for his eloquent and funny attack on thekinds of nonsense that seem to flourish in fartoo many offices. We doubt, sadly, that thoseresponsible for the examples ridiculed in thebook will read it, but read it they should.

Plain EnglishDiplomas

Stephen Fry – Fry’s EnglishDelight (BBC Radio 4)

Fry’s English Delight isn’t theonly language-basedprogramme on the radio, but itis the best. It’s an always-entertaining show, fronted bythe ever affable and eruditeFry, and managed to devote anepisode to Plain English in 2014– all the more reason tocelebrate it.

Web Award

Peter Taylor – Skills FundingAgency

Georgia Jerram – SouthernHousing

Martyn Well – Capital One

Christine Worsley –HM Courts and TribunalsService

Change are a leadinghuman-rights organisation ledby disabled people. Theirwebsite is clear, withuncluttered text and navigationthat is easy to follow. Attentionhas clearly been paid to makingthe site content as accessible aspossible.

The language is in plain English,and it avoids jargon.

www.changepeople.org

Matthew Oakley –Independent inquiry intobenefits.

Matthew led an independentinquiry into benefits that foundthat claimants are misled,denied crucial information andultimately let down by theDepartment for Work andPensions who used ‘legalistic,unclear and confusing’language.

InternationalAward

Media Awards

John Rentoul

For his The Banned List, firsta book in 2011 and now anongoing blog.

Mr Fisk has been doing fantasticwork for many years, and hiswork in 2014, particularly onIsis and Syria, offered theclearest, most insightful voiceon an extremely difficultmatter. He helped make somekind of sense of what was andis largely senseless.

Pat on the BackAward

Boris Johnson – for hiscomments on gobbledygook inpolitics.

Robert Fisk

Chrissie MaherAward

Foot in MouthAward

Russell Brand

Osborne MemorialAward

Plain EnglishCommunicatorAward

Russell was out on his own inthe 2014 ‘Foot in Mouth’ stakes.While we admire Russell’sdetermination to open up adebate about democracy andthe dire state of the world, westruggle to make sense of mostof his comments and wonder ifthat might be due to the factthat he’s lost beyond sound-biteself-promotion.

Steven Pinker – for his bookThe Sense of Style: TheThinking Person’s Guide toWriting in the 21st Century Kick in the Pants

AwardJony Ive

Peter Rodney, who sadlypassed away in November,worked tirelessly to bring plainEnglish into legal language formany years. Peter campaigned,taught and argued eloquentlyon the Campaign’s behalf andhis contribution was enormous.He will be sadly missed.

Apple released an apparently(and typically) great product in2014 – the ‘Apple Watch’.However, Apple’s Senior VicePresident of Design, Jony Ive,was a little too creative when itcame to selling the product.

Award winners and diplomas

Role ResponsibilityThe Senior Adviser, Economic Security andOpportunities will lead on work within thefocus area of Economic Security andOpportunity as part of a wider approach toresilience.

The role has influence across the wholeorganisation and involves externalengagement across a range of development,policy and research actors. You will take alead on the development of internalstrategies, work intensively on specificdevelopment projects, provide technicalsupport to a major thrust on businessdevelopment, and build relationships withmajor external stakeholders.

Golden Bullwinners2014

In the absence of the detail of the LEADERNational Operational Manual the proposeddecision making process is outlined below andthis has been based on previous delivery ofthe LEADER in Cornwall and closely mirrorsthe process outlined in the European Networkfor Rural Development Guide (Nos:10) whichoutlines best practice for LEADER delivery andis based on experiences in the Argyll andIslands LEADER Group.

We recently told you about our plans to changethe names of our car parks at BirminghamAirport. The good news is the changeover wassuccessfully completed this morning. We believethis change makes it easier for you to select acar park that suits your needs.

What’s changed?

So a relevant comparator investment for yourcase was Comparator 3. This comparator is areturn equal to a 50/50 combination of theAPCIMS Balanced Index and the IMA MixedInvestment 40-85% Shares sector. Thiscomparator has a listed equity exposure of40-85% (IMA) and 67.5% (APCIMS).

James Hambro and Partners LLC sent aletter containing this paragraph to one oftheir clients

Can I switch from flexible drawdown to

One of our supporters sent us this fromHMRC’s web pages on drawdown pensions

The following 67-word paragraph, takenfrom Local Action Cornwall’s LocalDevelopment Strategy, has been sent to usby a supporter who wants to remainanonymous

Michael Marshall is confused about whyNCP thinks this email, containing proudlytrumpeted changes, ‘makes it easier…toselect a car park’ when to him and us itseems more confusing

Here’s a BBC Media Action advertisementfor a ‘Senior Adviser, Economic Securityand Opportunities’, whatever one of thoseis (the job description makes it no clearer)

capped drawdown?

[Schedule 165 (3B) Finance Act 2004]

No - the test on whether or not you qualify forflexible drawdown is only at the start of flexibledrawdown. The decision to move to flexibledrawdown is irrevocable under the tax rulesand you can’t lose the ability to take drawdownpension using flexible drawdown. Once you arein flexible drawdown it is for you and yourscheme administrator to decide how much youtake out and how often. The amounts drawnunder flexible drawdown may be similar to ordifferent from the amounts allowed undercapped drawdown. However, there are taxconsequences if you subsequently makecontributions to or resume active membershipof any registered pension schemes after takingflexible drawdown.

British Telecom email error message

The string too long is refused or truncated andthe service works fine.

The case review workstream has beenestablished which now includes the legacy Joulecase reviews and the deferred case reviews.Activity to date has included amendments to thecase review deliverables to make themappropriate for deferred cases. Work is nowprogressing on the re-programming andre-prioritisation of the case reviews andconfirming the number of cases to be reviewedby Deloitte and the internal CEC team.Theinterface and dependencies between the casereview and billing teams are also beingreviewed to improve and streamline theprocess. Deloitte will begin to work with CECtechnical resource, once identified, to transferknowledge and skills for future case reviewwork.

In respect of an Application Form themaximum power requirement specified as theMaximum Power Requirement in theApplication Form or in respect of a VerbalAgreement, the maximum power requirementidentified as the Maximum PowerRequirement in the Letter failing suchspecification or identification the maximumamounts which you are entitled to takethrough the Connection Point.

Tim Day sent this from the City ofEdinburgh Council’s ‘ProgrammeMomentum Progress Report‘

One of our supporters wasn’t keen onScottish Power’s definition of MaximumPower Requirement

Buckinghamshire County Council is seeking toestablish a Framework Agreement to create aflexible base of external consultancy expertiseto assist with the implementation of itsTransformation programme and other changeprojects across the organisation. TheFramework is intended to provide flexible andagile access to resources in support of the coreand additional services identified in thespecification.

Through the Framework, the Council is alsoseeking to channel its spend in a way thatprovides enhanced value for money and helpsto shape a single view of change.

We are seeking to appoint a number of capableand innovative service providers to theFramework who can deliver against a multi-project portfolio of work over the next fewyears. We will be looking to our Frameworkpartners not just to respond to our needs andwe will also welcome a proactive approach andpartners that will bring fresh ideas andboundary-pushing proposals to the table.

Buckinghamshire County CouncilConsultancy Services Framework sent byAshley Baxter

2. What are the times for peak and off-peaktravel?

Our peak time services run Monday to Friday,from 06.59 to 09.59, and from 16.00 - 18.59.Off-peak services run at all other times.

Although it is considered peak between 16.00and 18.59, if you purchase a ticket to travel atthis time, the ticket is sold as off-peak.

This is because off peak tickets are generallyavailable for travel after 09.30 in the metroarea, and on services which arrive in Londonafter 10.00 from Kent mainline.

Southeastern Railways’ website

Pensions Ombudsman

‘Police and Firefighters’ pension schemes– update number 16

We appreciate that there is considerableinterest in the progress of the lead complaintthat we are investigating and in the outcomegiven the effect that this will have on otherretired members. However, the issuesconcerned need careful consideration. They arecomplex and the consequences of theOmbudsman’s decision potentially verysignificant for the affected parties. We arecurrently obtaining the parties’ comments oncertain preliminary views expressed by theOmbudsman on the lead complaint. This is animportant procedural step and we expect thatthe next step will involve the issue acomprehensive preliminary decision by theOmbudsman with his views on all relevantaspects of the lead complaint and the likelyoutcome. We hope that this will happen inNovember and at that stage we will be able tosay when we envisage that the complaint willbe finally determined.

(Our supporter reasonably asked why theycouldn’t simply state: ‘We’re still looking intoit.’)

7

Weird Al’s mission statement‘Weird’ Al Yankovic and Plain English Campaignprobably don’t have much in common. Itseems, though, that we do share a dislike ofmanagement jargon.

Yankovic, who built a career out of mockingmuch bigger stars with alternate, puerileversions of their hit songs, has now decided totake on office jargon. And, his efforts havepulled in well over a million views online.

His latest trick – a few decades after his heydaywhich chiefly involved turning Michael Jackson’s‘Beat It’ into a comedy alternative version called‘Eat It’ – is to incorporate examples of businessgobbledygook in his latest song ‘MissionStatement’, and let them speak for themselves.

That so many people have shown amusedinterest in the results can only be good for thegeneral perception of corporate gibberish,although it has always seemed immune toridicule. Those using it tend to have little in theway of a self-critical sense of humour.

Nonetheless, we should thank ‘Weird’ Al for thefocus of his efforts. We can only hope that someof those tuning in are cured for good. Anypotential for using such language, or at leasttaking it seriously, deserves ridicule, andYankovic has hopefully provided at least a littleembarrassment for the worst offenders.

Training dates for 2015 (open courses)If you have any questions about our range of

Manchester – Thistle HotelWednesday 18 February – plain EnglishWednesday 18 November – plain English

London – Thistle Euston HotelThursday 29 January – plain EnglishWednesday 18 March – GrammarcheckThursday 19 March – plain EnglishThursday 7 May – plain EnglishWednesday 15 July – plain EnglishWednesday 16 September – GrammarcheckThursday 17 September – plain EnglishWednesday 25 November – plain English

Special open course dates – ThistleEuston hotel

Thursday 19 February – Writing for websites inplain EnglishWednesday 17 June – Advanced grammarTuesday 20 October – Report writing

Diploma course dates

London – Thistle Euston HotelTuesday 20 JanuaryWednesday 21 January

Manchester – Thistle HotelTuesday 21 AprilWednesday 22 April

ask for Terri Schabel.open courses, phone us on 01663 744409 and

Edinburgh – The King James by ThistleWednesday 25 March – plain English