Tuesday October 2, 2012
Plainly speaking
By FABIENNE FAUR
Poor communication is a great hidden cost of doing business.
WHY not say “change” rather than “effect modifications“, or “publish” rather than “promulgate“, or “pay” instead of “remunerate“? So say plain speaking advocates fighting to end “gobbledygook“.
Winning such a battle “would benefit everyone,” said those gathered in Washington DC earlier in the year for a conference aimed at banishing jargon from American laws, application forms, public notices, and even user manuals for television sets.
The event was organised by Clarity, a worldwide group of lawyers, top managers and heads of government services who argue for the use of plain language in place of legalese. And it drew people from 20 countries, including Australia, France, Qatar, Estonia, and the Scandinavian nations.
“How can you have a democracy when the citizen does not understand what the government is saying,” says Annetta Cheek, board chair of the Center for Plain Language.
“It’s becoming a more and more common perception in all sectors, that they have to be more inclusive in their communication.”
The United States in 2010 adopted a law encouraging the simplification of administrative language. The Swedish government, meanwhile, employs five lawyers to write its laws in simple language, and Portugal has introduced similar measures.
The aim of plain English campaigners is to heighten awareness in global government and business circles about the damaging effect that obscure, badly-worded language has on the population.
In a more sweeping suggestion, Cheek says the damaging effects of jargon had been seen in the global financial crisis in 2008, as waves of mortgage owners failed to understand what they were signing up for.
“The world financial crisis would have been less damaging if people had understood what those long documents said,” Cheek says, referring to mortgage and credit applications, noting that finance is an area that affects everyone.
“If they had understood that in five years their interest payments would go through the roof, that if they didn’t pay their credit card on time, their interest would go through the roof,” less harm would have been done, he points out.
Joseph Kimble, a professor at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, says the stripping out of jargon would benefit both the writers of documents as well as the people who read them.
“It pays off for everybody,” says Kimble. “Plain language can restore faith in public institutions. Poor communication is the great hidden cost of doing business.” – AFP
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