to think this level of dumbing down has to be a joke?

[mayorquimby]

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7705922.stm

in a nut shell, a number of local councils want to ban their staff from using latin terms because it might confuse people.
Now i'm not talking about quoting the republic but simple terms like "vice versa" "QED" or the abbreviation "e.g.".
i mean FFS surely this is just pandering to morons.

Management speak is just as bad.

Once had a meeting - entirely senior management - and one word out of. If people find existing language hard to deal with, why introduce more when good usable words exist already.

'one word of of 6' I meant to say

one word out of 6....

I can see why you struggled

You could get a job at the council ..

It is surely more cost-effective to translate documents into several community languages than to employ council workers to try to explain indvidually to the people who come in and say they don't understand the communication (or ignore it and fail to comply with its contents, necessitating further proceedings). Surely?

Those people who think there is hardly anyone in the land who would be baffled by "e.g." should seriously get out more.

It's a good idea for councils, or anyone who has to communicate with the public, to run stuff past the Plain English Campaign. I once got them to check some GP practice leaflets which they reckoned demanded a reading age of 16. No use at all.

Broadsheet newspapers generally come out as demanding a reading age of about 12 - anything more than that and you are really limiting the number of people who will pay attention to your message, let alone comprehend it.

Latin is a side issue. As catsmother says, it's the generally poor standard of writing by officialdom that really needs to be tackled.

I am quite fond of classic civil-service language, though. Beautifully constructed in order to confuse anyone who they thought should be left in the dark...