Sadly, I missed the nomination date for this year's Golden Bull Awards, which are due to be announced tomorrow. Run by the Plain English Campaign, the awards are given for the best examples of jargon, gobbledygook, impenetrable phraseology and other confusing language.
My entry was going to be an anti-litter notice which adorns every other lamppost and telegraph pole in the borough of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. It shows a hound defecating in the street with the legend: "When your dog has done its business. Do yours."
It could have been a contender, though it was hardly up to the standard of last year's winner, a bamboozling letter to a customer from the Bank of Scotland: "We hereby give you notice that Bank of Scotland have retrocessed, reponed and restored Executors and Assignees, in and to their own right and place in the undernoted policy of Assurance by our Office, Videlicet. . ."
We have all been victims of abstruse communications from government departments, local authorities and financial institutions. Attempts have been made from time to time to encourage our bureaucratic brethren to write clearly and effectively. A slim volume, Write it Better, was produced by the Department of Finance as long ago as 1968. It contains clear and sensible guidance. Who could argue with the following?
"It is often harder to be brief than prolix: a famous writer once apologised for the length of a letter by saying that there was no time to write a short one. In the Civil Service, long and rambling minutes and letters, cluttered up with details not germane to the point at issue, hold up action rather than further it. It is one of the marks of a good administrator to be able to concentrate on the essentials of a problem and to expound them concisely."
Civil servants were advised to favour short words rather than long ones. "Use the shortest word which expresses the meaning," the booklet advocated. "Your writing will be crisper and have more impact." Among the examples given were: outline (instead of adumbrate), think (consider), show (evince), end (terminate), pay (remuneration), go (proceed).
Some of the lessons in that 1968 booklet have obviously been forgotten: "There is a temptation for the new entrant to the Civil Service, who has won his position by superior performance in competitive entry tests, to flaunt his knowledge and abilities by using long words and high-sounding phrases. It is a mistake to think that this kind of writing shows better education. Equally misguided is the notion that once you have left school you must adopt some form of indecipherable handwriting and sign your name or write your initials with an exaggerated flourish which effectively prevents identification."
As well as the high-sounding phrases of the Civil Service there are expressions which are so overworked from day to day that they have lost every last vestige of meaning. Politicians and trade union officials are the principal practitioners of hackneyed jargon. The list is almost endless but top of the linguistic irritants must be the following: At this moment in time; going forward; with all due respect; at the end of the day; between a rock and a hard place; hand, act or part; outside the box; I know where you're coming from; I hear what you're saying; I didn't interrupt you; it is not rocket science; 24/7; basically; let's touch base; to be honest; you know like; you know what I mean.
A slovenly approach to language leads to these and similar phrases being used to the point of exhaustion. The resources of the English tongue are rich enough to enable people who have to communicate with the public to express themselves effectively and articulately. There was a time when it was possible to use national broadcasting organisations, such as the BBC and RTÉ, as touchstones for the use of language which was easy to comprehend at first hearing.
Now, too many presenters are sloppy, hesitant and imprecise in their delivery, perhaps in the mistaken impression that they are establishing a casual mateyness with their audience. The paucity of content of some programmes could be explained by George Orwell's pronouncement that "The English language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that this process is reversible."
For a start broadcasting companies could help in the reversal by banning the use of the word "absolutely". Almost every question asked is answered with "absolutely". Does your wife do the shopping? Absolutely. Do you cycle to work? Absolutely. And so on ad infinitum. Whatever happened to the simple and meaningful "Yes"?
The Plain English Campaign is making a useful contribution to restoring fluency to the language. It defines plain English as something that the intended audience can read, understand and act upon the first time they read it. Based in Derbyshire, it does not accept grants or donations. It funds itself by editing documents for various institutions and holding training courses. A number of Irish financial houses are among its clients.
As well as the Golden Bull Award it makes annual awards for the more positive use of English in documents, internal correspondence in the (British) civil service and on websites, and the Foot in Mouth Award for the most baffling comment. Last year it went to Boris Johnson, Tory MP and editor of the Spectator for his statement on the BBC quiz-show Have I Got News For You: "I could not fail to disagree with you less."
Mr Johnson's comment, however, was not in the same class as that of the 2003 winner, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me," he told a press conference. "Because as we know there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
