A plea for plain words

There has been a lot in the press recently about jargon. Government bodies, and local government is no exception, have been criticised for the use of obscure words and expressions that seem virtually meaningless to normal human beings. In my view it’s not just the use of ‘government speak’; in reports the meaning of words is sometimes horribly abused and contorted.

I am afraid that Babergh officers sometimes fall into the trap, often when copying something directly out of a paper written by an apparatchik in central government. Recently I couldn’t resist picking someone up on the expression ‘a modern and diverse community’. What on earth does the much misused word ‘modern’ mean in this context? Modern does not really mean ‘up to date’, although people often use it in this way. Even if this were its meaning the use of the word in this context would be hard to decipher. Babergh’s worst sin however is the constant use by officers of acronymns, LDF*, AONB*, etc etc. which serve to confuse and delay anyone watching a presentation or reading a document.

A correspondent from Little Waldingfield feels the same! He writes:


‘After reading todays Mercury....Page 2, re: expenditure on various Sudbury projects, whatever happened to the Tesco money? That seems to have gone a little quiet.
Also who on earth came up with the name "Market town partnership steering group"
honestly, what council speak twaddle.

Anyway, yours in a stakeholding, strategic, consultative, pathfinding, digitational, diversifying, accredited, frameworking, supportive, engaging, sustainable, partnership, cascading, assessing, consolidating, standardising, vibrant, aware, community, factfileing, responsive, foundational, co-ordinating, structured, restructured, quality, targeting, neighbourhood, principled, projected, key, surgery, workshop, addressed, commitment, benchmarked, focused, projected, team, cabinet, implemented, accessible, emphasising, in an extrapolated, interpolated kind of way.’

The writer adds a postscript challenging Suffolk County Council and Babergh to try to make up a sentence including all the words above. Perhaps someone could be specially employed, he says, or perhaps someone already is!

*All readers will of course know that these mean Local Development Framework and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’.