Declaring War on Jargon
A list of terms and conditions on the back of your mortgage application. Any correspondence from a solicitor. Listening to a politician speak. They all have one thing in common: they’re packed with mind-numbing, confusing information designed to bamboozle you.
The UK is up in arms about the jargon politicians use – and who can blame us? It can sometimes seem as though our local officials have received training in ever more inventive ways of using gobbledygook to mislead and bluster the public into submission.
Sadly jargon is alive and well in some recruitment advertising too, and it has to go. In this SEO savvy world, information needs to be as clear, concise and as searchable as possible. We need information quickly. Anything that makes us say, ‘Now what does that mean?’ is wasting our time.
Some companies feel that to write simply makes them sound unprofessional. But waffle and gobbledygook is much more harmful to a company and its brand.
Fighting the corner for simplicity is the Plain English Campaign. It started in 1979 and now has over 12,000 members from over 80 countries. The organisation rewards companies that use crystal-clear language and shames those that don’t. They also hold the annual ‘Golden Bull’ awards for examples of the most offending tripe. In 2007 they awarded one to Amadeus International, specialists in ‘corporate performance management’, for a job advert that stated:
‘The possibilities an organisation can envisage are bounded by the belief and values of its Leaders. Even when the potential of technology and strategy can be seen, there is a time-gap before the culture allows for its realisation … Can you help others to clarify their own map of the world? Can you hold a strength of values and beliefs and safely see your clients through transformation – both personal and organisational? … The Company does not have employees but creative players who wish to contribute leading transformational processes in a consultant role.’ Enough said.
So let’s all join the Plain English brigade, keep the ‘newspeak’ jargon solely for local council roles and write in plain old English.
Or in other words: ‘Going forward, prospective employment advertisements will now include positive aforementioned English language usage of the highest and most unadorned quality.’