toolkit
|
UK Gov: Kings Of Gobbledygook
|
British bureaucrats top a new league table of all-time gobbledygook, according to the Plain English Campaign.
The campaign's annual Golden Bull awards ? the dubious 'honour' first awarded in 1981 - recognises from six to eight of the most baffling examples of public information each year. Most of the examples are appearing on the internet for the first time.
The top ten types of gobbledygook offender, ranked by the number of documents winning a Golden Bull award this year, are as follows:
1. Government departments and agencies
2. Local authorities
3. Banks and building societies
4. Writers of contract terms and conditions
5. Insurance firms
6. Education organisations
7. Health organisations
8. Financial and investment firms
9. Transport groups
10. Solicitors writing letters to clients
Improvement
Spokesman John Lister said the results were surprising. "We expected the legal profession to be higher on the list. That said, many of the winners have immediately pointed the finger at their legal department! While both central and local government have traditionally done badly in the ?Golden Bulls?, we shouldn't forget the tremendous improvement in clarity from public officials since Plain English Campaign's launch. Government writing will always come under closer scrutiny because it affects everybody's lives. Fortunately the truly awful documents are now the exception rather than the rule.
"The list of offenders shows how widespread the problem of unclear writing is. When gobbledygook affects the law, money, health, education and transport, it can make our lives a daily misery."
|
|
|
back
printer friendly version
