How's that squirty inky stuff workin' out for ya?

I've written a lot in favour of the principles of plain English and Orwellian language generally, so I enjoyed Ed Smith's piece in the New Statesman challenging the ideas the great man laid out in Politics and the English Language. The penultimate paragraph was especially well put:

Orwell argues that the sins of obfuscation and euphemism followed inevitably from the brutalities of his political era. In the age of the atom bomb and the Gulag, politicians reached for words that hid unpalatable truths. By contrast, our era of vague political muddle and unclear dividing lines has inspired a snappy, gritty style of political language: the no-nonsense, evidence-backed, bullet-pointed road to nowhere.

 

It's very hard to disagree with that, particularly with the point about evidence-based policymaking, a phrase often used as a figleaf for policy-based evidencemaking. But I think the wider argument rests on something of a misreading of plain English; of when it needn't be used and when it must.

Any clear and honest communication of a political message is obviously a challenge both to bureaucratic or academic jargon that overcomplicates issues, but less obviously a challenge to the dumbing down that oversimplifies them (which seems often to be confused for plain English). Owen Jones is quite perceptive in noting that the left are particularly guilty on the former score, and the right on the latter: though we could hardly accuse Obama, say, of subxaggerating his backstory.

It's perfectly possible to be insincere with simple, straightforward language. Speaking honestly ought to be just as important as speaking plainly. Finally, it seems to be stating the obvious that plain English is necessary when the writer's primary purpose is to communicate clearly, but might not be when it isn't. A commentor on Stephen Poole's Guardian piece puts it perfectly:

I think you misunderstand the point of plain English a bit (but then in fairness, perhaps some of its adherents do as well). Most people wouldn't expect poetry to be written in plain English. But most people wouldn't expect poetry in a letter from the council, or a bank. Those are the kinds of communication plain English needs to be used in, so that everybody is able to easily understand information that directly affects their lives.

 

Frustrated narcissists in damp garrets are welcome to shovel as much allusion, amphibology and aureation into their fevered, ne'er-to-be-read ramblings and rants as they can manage: but please keep them away from writing letters for HMRC.

Nowt in front of the children

The story about a school in Middlesbrough taking a stern line on non-standard English caught my eye the other day, as did Tom Chivers' take on it.

I agree with Chivers and Wallace that the interests of the learner count most: rightly or wrongly, children will become adults who will be judged on how they speak, and anyone who claims not to judge others by what comes out of their mouths has lies coming out of their own. But I would add that clear communication demands quite a high degree of formalised English. I can (usually, pretty much) understand what any of my fellow Glaswegians are saying to me, but a non-native English-speaking visitor (or even a non-Glaswegian native English speaker) might find himself completely confused by the local vernacular — as when my guest from London was surprised to find two sausages in his 'single sausage' order. Expect plenty of similarly sidesplitting examples of native miscommunication when we host the Commonwealth Games next year.

It's both more considerate and more efficient to be able to speak and write in a recognised and clear form of English. That's not to deny the richness that regional language adds to British culture and the English language; it often saddens me to hear people in parts of East Anglia or the southwest speaking a homogenised estuary English when two generations ago they would have had a distinctly local accent and vocabulary. I don't envy teachers the task of finding the right balance between preserving this heritage while instilling a globally vital form of communication. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that, as English speakers, it's only local forms facing extinction, and not our whole language.

There's also a third category of people (usually politicians, academics or middle managers in large organisations) who think that because they don't use local slang they're in command of 'proper' English, but whose idea of communication is to stuff sentences with jargon, obfuscation and words that generally add nothing to the meaning. This often comes down to a lack of intellectual confidence: they imagine that plain English is somehow unsophisticated English, or try too hard to compensate for not having much of interest to say.

The sad truth is that this lack of confidence often stems from something missing in their own schooldays — so perhaps we should applaud anything to prevent the urchins of Middlesbrough becoming the bullshitters of tomorrow.