Comments on: Using plain English in local government communications

By: Jargon, plain English and local government | Simon Wakeman - Marketing and public relations

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:44:57 +0000

[...] The lead piece was titled “What’s stopping local government from using plain English?” and linked to an interesting online debate about the use of language in local government (something I’ve blogged about previously). [...]

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:02:53 +0000

Thanks for the comment Chris – you make a good point about appropriateness to context as well as audience. What’s appropriate in print is different to face to face which is different to web.

The challenge for communicators is to give non-communicators the tools, guidance, training etc to be appropriate – guidelines that ensure consistency but don’t stifle appropriateness!

By: Chris Marritt

Chris Marritt — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:14:01 +0000

You hit the nail on the head with the phrase “appropriate English” – but it’s not just about being appropriate to audience; appropriate to context is obviously important too.

During my journalism training, my then tutor passionately defended his right to use a word that few readers would know in a feature he had written for a national newspaper (it’s not important which one).

His theory was that, while news pieces had to be accessible and quickly-read, he expected readers of in-depth features to show more commitment. Having invested more time in reading that kind of article, he argued, feature readers would be more inclined to refer to a dictionary once in a while.

Funnily enough, I didn’t agree with the theory then, but if the right balance is struck, I think I do now.

Of course, if he was writing that feature now, maybe he could suggest that, when the article was published online, the obscure word could carry a link straight through to its dictionary definition!