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!