Plain language

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Plain language, sometimes called simple language or clear language, is lucid, succinct writing designed to ensure that the reader will understand as easily and clearly as possible. Plain language avoids the complications created by verbose, convoluted writing common in technical, legal and other fields.

With the important exception of the plainest possible presentation of a subject which is in itself complex, plain language is usually writing that is easy to read, understand and use. It allows a writer to reach a wider audience by using specific techniques for layout, design and writing text.

While the boundaries of plain language are debated, most literacy scholars and semanticicts agree that plain language must include these facets:

• "...Clear and effective communication..." (Joseph Kimble)

• "...the idiomatic and grammatical use of language that most effectively presents ideas to the reader..." (Bryan Garner)

• "...clear, straightforward expression, using only as many words as are necessary. It is language that avoids obscurity, inflated vocabulary and convoluted construction. It is not baby talk, nor is it a simplified version of ... language." (Dr Robert Eagleson)

• Plain Language is a literary style that is easy-to-read because it matches the reading skill of the audience." (William DuBay)

[edit] History

As a concept, plain language can be traced back as far as Cicero, who argued “When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”

Cicero writes that the plain style is not easy. While it may seem close to everyday speech, achieving the effect in formal discourse is a high and difficult art: "plainness of style seems easy to imitate at first thought, but when attempted, nothing is more difficult."

Plainness does not mean the absence of all ornaments, only the more obvious ones. Cicero recognizes what Aristotle had long before pointed out, that a well-turned metaphor or simile can help us see a relation we had not recognized. In fact, he makes abundant use of metaphor and simile to teach us what the plain style is all about:

... although it is not full-blooded, it should nevertheless have some of the sap of life so that, though it lack great strength, it may be, so to speak, in sound health.... Just as some women are said to be handsomer when unadorned... so this plain style gives pleasure when unembellished.... All noticeable pearls, as it were, will be excluded. Not even curling irons will be used. All cosmetics, artificial white and red, will be rejected. Only elegance and neatness will remain. (The Orator, xxiii, 76-79)

[edit] United States

By the end of the 19th century, scholars began studying the features of plain language. In 1893 a Professor of English Literature at the University of Nebraska, A. L. Sherman wrote, Analytics of Literature: A manual for the objective study of English prose and poetry. In that work, Sherman showed that the English sentence has shortened over time and that spoken English is a pattern for written English.

Sherman wrote:

Literary English, in short, will follow the forms of the standard spoken English from which it comes. No man should talk worse than he writes, no man writes better than he should talk.... The oral sentence is clearest because it is the product of millions of daily efforts to be clear and strong. It represents the work of the race for thousands of years in perfecting an effective instrument of communication.

In 1921, the publication of two works, Harry Kitson's "The Mind of the Buyer," and Edward L. Thorndike's "The Teacher's Word Book" picked up where Sherman left off. Kitson's work was the first to apply the principles of empirical psychology to advertising. He advised the use of short words and sentences. Thorndike's work contained the frequency ratings of 10,000 words. He recommended using the ratings in his book to grade books not only for students in schools but also for average readers and adults learning English. Thorndike wrote:

It is commonly assumed that children and adults prefer trashy stories in large measure because they are more exciting and more stimulating in respect to sex. There is, however, reason to believe that greater ease of reading in respect to vocabulary, construction, and facts, is a very important cause of preference. A count of the vocabulary of "best sellers" and a summary of it in terms of our list would thus be very instructive.

The 1930s saw an explosion of studies on how to make texts more readable for the average reader. In 1931, Douglas Tyler and Ralph Waples published the results of their two-year study, "What People Want to Read About." In 1934, Ralph Ojemann, Edgar Dale, and Ralph Waples published two studies on writing for adults with limited reading ability. In 1935, educational psychologist William S. Gray teamed up with Bernice Leary to publish their landmark study, "What Makes a Book Readable."

Lyman Bryson at Teachers College in Columbia University led efforts to supply average readers with more books of substance dealing with science and current events. Among Bryson's students were Irving Lorge and Rudolf Flesch, who both became leaders in the plain-language movement.

Others who later led the research in plain language and readability included educator Edgar Dale of Ohio State, Jeanne S. Chall of the Reading Laboratory of Harvard, and George R. Klare of Ohio University. Their efforts spurred the publication of over 200 readability formulas and 1,000 published studies on readability. Research on what makes a text easy-to-read continues today.

Beginning in 1935, a series of literacy surveys showed that the average reader in the U.S. was an adult of limited reading ability. Today, the average adult in the U.S. reads at the 9th-grade level. This is not so surprising when you consider nearly a quarter of Americans do not graduate from high school. Drop-outs have an average 3rd-grade reading level. Large numbers graduate from high school reading at the 8th-grade level.

Access to health information, educational and economic development opportunities, and government programs is often referred to in a social justice context. To ensure that more community members are able to access this information, many adult educators, writers of legal documents and social program developers include plain language principles when developing public documents^{[citation needed]}. The end goal of plain language translation is to increase accessibility for those with lower literacy levels.

In the United States, the movement towards Plain English began in the 1940s through the pens of Stuart Chase and George Orwell. Orwell’s 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" decried the pretentious diction, meaninglessness, vagueness, and worn-out idioms of political jargon. In 1953, Chase wrote "The Power of Words," in which he complained about gobbledygook and legalese in English semantics, with an emphasis on political and legal discourse. At this point, Plain Language was seen as little more than a philosophical discussion.

In North American industry, the plain language movement began in the 1970’s when First National City Bank (now Citibank ) launched the first plain language consumer loan documents^{[citation needed]}. Concerned about the large number of suits against its customers to collect bad debts, the bank voluntarily made the decision to implement plain language policies in 1973.^[1] That same decade, the consumer-rights movement won legislation that required plain language in contracts, insurance policies, and government regulations. American law schools began requiring students to take legal writing classes which encouraged them to use plain English as much as possible and to avoid legal jargon, except when absolutely necessary. Public outrage with the skyrocketing number of unreadable government forms led to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980.

In 1972, the Plain Language Movement received practical politcal application, when President Richard Nixon decreed that the “Federal Register be written in layman’s terms.” On March 23, 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order 12044. It said that federal officials must see to it that each regulation is "written in plain English and understandable to those who must comply with it." President Ronald Reagan rescinded these orders in 1981; however, many political agencies continued to oblige by them. By 1991, eight states has also passed legislation related to plain language.

In June 1998, President Bill Clinton issued a memorandum calling for executive departments and agencies to use plain language in all government documents. Vice President Al Gore subsequently spearheaded a plain language initiative that formed a group called the Plain Language Action Network (PLAN) to provide plain language training to government agencies.

[edit] Great Britain

For three hundred years after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, English was the language of the kitchen^{[citation needed]}. By the end of that period, English had dropped its case endings of nouns, personal endings of verbs, and other complexities.^{[citation needed]}

In the six centuries since that time, English developed a diversity of literary styles, some of them very ornate, others simple.

Shakespeare parodied the pretentious style, as evidenced in the speeches of Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. Making fun of people who use fancy language has been a stock device of comedy ever since.

The Plain or Native Style was in fact an entire literary tradition during the English Renaissance, running from Skelton through Ben Jonson and including such poets as Barnabe Googe, George Gascoyne, Walter Raleigh and perhaps the later work of Fulke Greville. In addition to its purely linguistic plainness, the Plain Style employed an emphatic, pre-Petrarchan prosody (each syllable either clearly stressed or clearly unstressed).

During the 20th Century, plain language in the United Kingdom advanced through the Plain English Campaign.

[edit] Examples

In Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the phrase "I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request" is revealed to simply mean "No." The pretentious dialogue Elizabeth Swann attempts to use as a gate-keeping device against the rouge Jack Sparrow provides a strong examples of how jargon and pretentious language can be used as a barrier between class.

[edit] "Before & after"

Before

Title I of the CARE Act creates a program of formula and supplemental competitive grants to help metropolitan areas with 2,000 or more reported AIDS cases meet emergency care needs of low-income HIV patients. Title II of the Ryan White Act provides formula grants to States and territories for operation of HIV service consortia in the localities most affected bu the epidemic, provision of home and community -based care, continuation of insurance coverage for persons with HIV infection, and treatments that prolong life and prevent serious deterioration of health. Up to 10 percent of the funds for this program can be used to support Special Projects of National Significance.

After

Low income people living with HIV/AIDS gain, literally, years, through the advanced drug treatments and ongoing care supported by HRSA’s Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act^[2]

[edit] See also

• Plain English
• Plain English Campaign
• Plain Language Movement
• List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• http://www.plainenglish.co.uk
• Clarity (the lawyers' movement for plain legal language)
• http://www.plainlanguage.gov
• The Plain Language Association International (PLAIN)
• Plain language and legislation booklet: Office of the Scottish Parliamentary Counsel
• http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/plainlanguage
• Clarity Rating Calculator