On May 11, 2013, The Calgary Herald reported that the city council has embraced a plain-language policy. Is it dumbing down or removing pretentious words that do not add to the meaning?
The primary reason for communication is clarity. If there are too many words that the average person does not understand in the message, then it is useless.
The larger the word, the greater the risk of misinterpretation. There are often many definitions for that large word so selecting the smaller word from the list of definitions will remove any possibility of which one the reader should select.
For example, “The role of the Implementation Teams will be to focus on the transformational actions within their sphere . . . The CPRI supports the social objectives of the TBL.”
Can anyone tell me what you think this says?
It is a typical clause from the Calgary bureaucracy.
This example is from a report about dealing with poverty issues. Most of the citizens that it would involve have a reading level of grade five to grade seven.
Rewriting "transformational actions" to "changes" makes it far clearer and less intimidating to those that are involved.
Sentences with upwards of twenty words are begging for confusion. Breaking them into shorter, clearer phrases will result in better comprehension for everyone.
The documents they are adjusting were designed to help the citizens and not be a vocabulary lesson. If too many become confused then the purpose for publishing has not been met.
Having to admit that they do not understand it can crush their self esteem, often at a time when they need it to be built up.
The alphabet soup should also be clarified. If the name of an organization is too long then maybe the name should be shortened with the pretentious words removed or replaced with common ones that can be understood by everyone.
source: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/energy-resources/Council+bureaucratic+bafflegab+embracing+plain+language/8369591/story.html
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