Mean what you say

Our supermarkets are full of language that does just the opposite. For years I used to buy a ‘light’ olive oil thinking it was lower in fat, only to discover that the lightness actually referred to its colour. I almost bought a coffee substitute that offered ‘real coffee taste’. Naturally, the word ‘taste’ appears in miniscule six-point type. 

‘Flavour’ is another marketing favourite with our food manufacturers, particularly when it comes to fruit. So many products boast ‘real fruit’ in large letters, only to clarify with the word ‘flavour’ in reversed-out, yellow-on-white type underneath. And eating ‘real fruit flavour’ is nowhere near the same as eating ‘real fruit’.

Look closely at the products in your shopping trolley. You will find that many of them use a similar sleight of design. They prominently say one thing, while the reality is something else. 

Of course, as consumers, we have the choice to walk away from that conversation by not buying the product. At other times, we cannot answer back this way. If I had walked away from my doctor, for example, I wouldn’t be walking around today. 

It is only when our public language both says what is means, and means what it says, that it will equalise the participation of writers and readers, of listeners and speakers and in our daily conversation, that is exactly what an ethical public language should strive to do.

Say what you mean

To say what you mean is the more obvious of the two. When a lift repair company was working in an office building, it posted a notice saying:

To enhance the performance of the vertical transportation, we wish to advise
that the lifts are going through a readjustment program.

Why could they not write ‘we’re sorry for the delay, but we need to work on the lifts’?

A colleague of mine was once editing an engineer’s report, which was explaining a construction project to a non-technical reader. One passage detailed how a pipe would need to be sprayed with cement until it attained negative buoyancy. She edited this to read until it sank. No, the engineer argued, it must read until it attained negative buoyancy. So it didn’t sink? Well, yes. So we can write sink? No, because technically it attained negative buoyancy. And so it went.

These authors are more intent on sounding impressive, on elevating their own status rather than conversing with their readers. 

Ironically, the tier of government closest to the people is one of the worst offenders. Here’s a letter my local council sent when I wrote about the noise from a neighbour’s swimming pool pump.

            Reference is made to your customer service request in relation to noise from the pool pump at the above-mentioned address.

In this regard please be advised that the owner of the subject property has been reminded of the permitted hours of operation for pool pumps in accordance with the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO).

The owners have also been requested to ensure the pump is enclosed within a specified time-frame. This matter will be monitored by Council and should the matter remain outstanding Council will consider its options action under the POEO.

This is the language of officialise, and it has been the norm for centuries in the language of commerce, of government, of the law and in the academy. It is an anti-democratic language because it places unnecessary barriers between our institutions and the people that they serve.

Leaving aside the question of how my neighbour could physically enclose a pump ‘within a specified timeframe’, let alone what exactly an ‘options action’ might be, why couldn’t the council just write:

Thank you for your letter about noise from your neighbour’s swimming pool pump. We have reminded your neighbours of the hours that the law permits them to operate the pump, and have given them a deadline to enclose the pump to reduce its noise. Council officers will monitor the situation and consider further action if this does not happen.

Not only is this clearer and more human, it is also forty percent shorter. Imagine reading forty percent fewer words every time you received a letter from the council, or your bank, or your insurer, or your telephone company!

What are the ethics of everyday language?

When we think about ethical language, what mostly leaps to mind are examples of corporate or political spin.

Spectacular as these might be, they often affect our lives far less directly than the everyday public language we encounter at work, in the supermarket, or at our local school.

Take something as simple as the family holiday.

Picture an average mum, dad and kids heading off to Tasmania on the new ferry service. They turn up at the quay to find their ship isn’t there. So mum starts to read the fine print on the conditions of carriage, and it sounds like this: “The TT-Line reserves the right at any time to substitute one vessel for another to abandon or alter any voyage either before the commencement or at any time during the course thereof to dispatch the vessel before” And this is only the first part of a 250-word, virtually unpunctuated sentence, which in turn rambles on for more than five and a half very dense pages.

Standing dockside with baggage in hand, our family is confronting the language of law. They have plenty of time to decipher the code, as their boat had in fact ‘dispatched’ before the advertised ‘commencement’. They think the text boils down to ‘Well, you’ve got a ticket, but we don’t actually have to take you anywhere’.

Now the lawyer who wrote this text would argue that said language is necessary to be legally precise. In a dispute, a judge fully invested in that code would know exactly what it meant, and that will keep the company safe from litigation.

And this is where we find our ethical problem: this text wasn’t written for our family, nor for anyone else boarding the Spirit of Tasmania. It was written to protect the interests of one party at the expense of another.

An equal conversation

If our public language is to be ethical, it needs to provide for a more equal participation in every transaction, whether in the mechanics workshop or at the local shop, at the insurance office or in the doctor’s office. Too often, the language deliberately turns what should be a conversation into a monologue.

So how can we maximise the chances of more equal conversations in our daily commerce? I want to suggest two simple rules for a more ethical language of public exchange:

1.    Say what you mean.

2.    Mean what you say.