Thursday, January 27, 2011

An award for conspicuously unclear English


The BBC reports “The Northern Ireland Civil Service has been given the dubious honour of a prize in the Plain English Campaign’s annual ‘Golden Bull’ awards.” In other words, the Campaign cited the Civil Service for conspicuously unclear English.

Read the full story here.

If you would like to read further about the Plain English Campaign, see this 2009 Wall Street Journal profile of Chrissie Maher, the charming founder of the campaign.

The Takeaway: Clear writing doesn’t just happen; it takes attention, empathy and diligence. Readers appreciate clear writing – at least the intelligent readers do, and they are the only readers who matter.

See disclaimer.

No comments:

Post a Comment