3 ms·

The Plain English Campaign's list of examples [0] (linked in TFA) was quite amusing. My favorite: 'the hours of non-hours work worked by a worker in a pay refe

by c22 4y ago

The Plain English Campaign's list of examples [0] (linked in TFA) was quite amusing. My favorite: 'the hours of non-hours work worked by a worker in a pay reference period shall be the total of the number of hours spent by him during the pay reference period in carrying out the duties required of him under his contract to do non-hours work.' [0]: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning/examples http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/campaigning/examples

marginalia_nu 4y ago
I briefly worked in the Swedish public sector that had at that point been pushing for plain language for a while. The problem they encountered is that the government still needs to be able to specify what they mean with precision. So what happened is that common words became overloaded with specific and often non-obvious legal meanings. People at large with no clue how to "speak government" still didn't understand what the government said, but instead of a bunch of known unknowns it turned the language into a minefield of unknown unknowns. (This got at least some attention notice during the covid pandemic, during which there was clear miscommunication between the government which used 'recommendations' to mean a strong non-legal mandate, and parts of the public which took it to mean helpful tips, like a movie recommendation)
- ohbtvz 4y ago
  Well, what's the difference between a "strong non-legal mandate" and a "helpful tip"? Either it's mandatory or not.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Both are non-mandatory, but the first carries the connotation that this is something the government thinks you should be doing, but the latter is more like a suggestion of something cool you may want to do, like visit the Vasa museum next time you're in Stockholm. Yes, they are both voluntary, but the nuance is quite different. That ambiguity in nuance is a problem, given that "recommendation" is the strongest wording for a non-legal mandate the Swedish government will use.
    - ohbtvz 4y ago
      If I understand you correctly, the issue is that the Swedish government used jargon masquerading as a common word, and as a result people didn't understand the meaning. That's another example of jargon being a problem!
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        Yeah. The deeper problem is that the government needs more precision than common words offer. Just as programmers invented programming languages to unambiguously express an idea, the legal system uses legal jargon to unambiguously express an idea. Getting rid of jargon means you need to express specific meanings some other way. The Swedish government chose overloading specific meanings to ambiguous words, which is really strictly worse than legal jargon.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > but the first carries the connotation that this is something the government thinks you should be doing Unfortunately that distinction was deliberately obfuscated by the UK Government during the COVID crisis. They would issue "guidelines" that you could be arrested for violating. As I recall, they began as real guidelines, and morphed into legal mandates without ever becoming laws.

by c22 4y ago

marginalia_nu 4y ago

I briefly worked in the Swedish public sector that had at that point been pushing for plain language for a while. The problem they encountered is that the government still needs to be able to specify what they mean with precision. So what happened is that common words became overloaded with specific and often non-obvious legal meanings. People at large with no clue how to "speak government" still didn't understand what the government said, but instead of a bunch of known unknowns it turned the language into a minefield of unknown unknowns. (This got at least some attention notice during the covid pandemic, during which there was clear miscommunication between the government which used 'recommendations' to mean a strong non-legal mandate, and parts of the public which took it to mean helpful tips, like a movie recommendation)

ohbtvz 4y ago
Well, what's the difference between a "strong non-legal mandate" and a "helpful tip"? Either it's mandatory or not.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Both are non-mandatory, but the first carries the connotation that this is something the government thinks you should be doing, but the latter is more like a suggestion of something cool you may want to do, like visit the Vasa museum next time you're in Stockholm. Yes, they are both voluntary, but the nuance is quite different. That ambiguity in nuance is a problem, given that "recommendation" is the strongest wording for a non-legal mandate the Swedish government will use.
  - ohbtvz 4y ago
    If I understand you correctly, the issue is that the Swedish government used jargon masquerading as a common word, and as a result people didn't understand the meaning. That's another example of jargon being a problem!
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      Yeah. The deeper problem is that the government needs more precision than common words offer. Just as programmers invented programming languages to unambiguously express an idea, the legal system uses legal jargon to unambiguously express an idea. Getting rid of jargon means you need to express specific meanings some other way. The Swedish government chose overloading specific meanings to ambiguous words, which is really strictly worse than legal jargon.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > but the first carries the connotation that this is something the government thinks you should be doing Unfortunately that distinction was deliberately obfuscated by the UK Government during the COVID crisis. They would issue "guidelines" that you could be arrested for violating. As I recall, they began as real guidelines, and morphed into legal mandates without ever becoming laws.