Citizens deserve plain language

Communication about issues that concern the public should be intelligible, not confusing or unnecessarily displaying expertise. (Representational image: Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels)

This month, New Zealand made an appeal for better understanding. The country’s Parliament passed legislation that asked the bureaucracy to stop using jargon and complex language when communicating with the public. It’s based on the United States’ Plain Writing Act of 2010, which requires the US Federal Government to create public documents that are clear and concise.

The aim of their Plain Language Act is to make democracy more inclusive, said the government, especially for non-native English speakers, people with disabilities, and those less educated. This is a laudable goal, and not just for New Zealand.

As lawyer Rohan Banerjee has pointed out in a recent piece on the issue, India’s Supreme Court has more than once castigated judicial writing clothed in unnecessary legalese. Earlier this year, a Supreme Court bench set aside an order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court because it was incomprehensible. “The purpose of judicial writing,” they said at the time, “is not to confuse or confound the reader behind the veneer of complex language”.

Indian bureaucratese, too, has its charms. Take these statements from a recent press release: “The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) has taken a number of initiatives under the Special Campaign for Disposal of Pending Matters (SCDPM 2.0) of GoI. MoPSW has identified removing pendency and improving cleanliness as the key focus areas, which will result in better record management, improve work efficiencies, enhance transparency and contribute towards a sustainable future.” Impressive.

New Zealand’s Plain Language Act has nevertheless been criticised, especially by Opposition MPs. Some have quoted Shakespeare, Chaucer and Wordsworth, as if to point out what would be lost by using plain language. Such objections ignore the point of the act. Ruling Labour Party MP Glen Bennett rightly – if sarcastically – responded: “You can still speak your big, wonderful, huge words that I don’t have, and I’m okay with that because this is around accessibility. This is around having language that everyone and anyone can understand.”

An example of the difference this can make comes from Australian linguists Keith Allan and Kate Burridge. They unearthed a civic notice to householders in a Melbourne suburb that read: “Refuse and rubbish shall not be collected from the site or receptacles thereon before the hour of 8:00 am or after the hour of 6:00 pm any day.” What householders would have found easier to follow, the linguists point out, is: “We will collect your garbage between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm.”

However, one reproval of the Act which may have some merit is that it calls for hiring Plain Language Officers to ensure compliance. Critics claim that this will increase the number of bureaucrats whom they disdainfully refer to as “the language police”. On the other hand, it’s still to be clarified how many such officers will be needed, and whether existing communication staff will shoulder the responsibility.

Over and above this is the suspicion that plain language dumbs down content and insults readers. This is far from the case. A study conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group found that even highly educated professionals in the fields of science, technology, and medicine look for succinct information online that is easy to scan and comprehend.

At times, ornate language is guided by self-interest. In an episode of Yes Minister, civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby recommends that instead of approving a proposal, an interdepartmental committee should be set up to arrive at a decision “based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions”. The minister’s response: “You mean no.”

It’s not only mandarins who delight in clotted language, of course. Walk into any meeting of marketing and allied professionals, and the air will be thick with expressions such as “blue sky thinking”, “move the needle”, “low hanging fruit”, and in a task impossible to achieve, “give it 110 percent”. If only they were more like Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty who scornfully declared that when he used a word, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less”.

Unfortunately, many in such settings think that others are easily impressed by gobbledegook. Often, they’re right. A corporate consultant who says that “limited bandwidth means gaining traction by leveraging core competencies” will be paid more than one who simply tells you to focus on what’s important.

This is not to say that specialised vocabulary should be done away with. Many disciplines, literary, legal or scientific, have expressions for specific ideas that may sound abstruse to those not in the field. The point of the Plain Language Act - which applies not just to New Zealand - is that communication about issues that concern the public should be intelligible, not confusing or unnecessarily displaying expertise.

As Rachel Boyack, the New Zealand MP who presented the bill said, people “have a right to understand what the government is asking them to do, and what their rights are, what they’re entitled to from the government”. It’s as plain and simple as that.