Martin Cutts - Oxford Guide to Plain English

More than a century ago, the legendary Cambridge University professor Arthur Quiller-Couch encouraged his students to write in a clear style without inflated language. He liked plain English, he said, which he summarized as the difference between He was conveyed to his place of residence in an intoxicated condition and He was carried home drunk.

Quiller-Couchs advice remains relevant to todays academic, business, and official writers. During workshops, I often ask them to list the most desirable features of the reports, papers, and emails they have to read. Nearly always they say clear, brief, and easy to follow. They loathe foggy language because it obscures meaning and muddles the mind, and they dislike badly organized material because it takes time and energy to disentangle. But, as the workshops show, whats really hard is for writers to spot these faults in their own worksadly, we all have themand put them right.

As the book will explore, fog appears in many guises. Long and tedious examples abound, but here are a few short ones to begin with. First this highly abstract statement from a 26-page job advert for a police officer in Northamptonshire:

Our Chief Constable must be able to see beyond the horizons of convention to make the paradigm shift.

This style of writing is not trivial or accidental. It acts as a subtle invitation to join the jargonaut club at the top of the police force. Its sending applicants a coded message that a fluent command of fog is required for the post. It would be a brave person who came for interview and said, If you give me this role, Ill start by ensuring your job adverts are clearer than this one.

Visiting a school, I saw a notice in the reception area saying:

In the event of an emergency evacuation of these premises should you require assistance to facilitate your evacuation would you please advise your host or reception on arrival.

This exemplifies the widespread problem of posh, pretentious fog. Perhaps it could simply have said:

Visitors: if theres an emergency, will you need help to leave the building? If so, please tell reception or your host now.

A notice in the rear window of a minibus for disabled people also exceeded the usual inflations of official style, telling motorists:

Please leave sufficient space behind this vehicle to allow safe ingress and egress of mechanically propelled, seated position, ambulatory devices, by means of authorized lifting equipment thank you.

In more relaxed English, it could have said:

Leave us a gap!

Please leave at least 2 metres (6 feet) clear so we can lift wheelchairs in and out. Thanks.

In all these cases, my fancy is that the sinister Fog People, fluent speakers of Obscuranto, have influenced the authors to adopt over-formal language theyd never use in a face-to-face chat. The result is that simple ideas have become overdressed.

Of course, writing clear documents is much tougher for all of us than scoffing at poor ones. We have to think hard about what were going to say, why were saying it, and wholl be reading it. The reward, though, is that readers usually prefer the result. Probably they wont even notice, and thats one definition of good writing. This book aims to help you reach that goal more quickly.

Theres a daily trickle of legalistic fog. My postbag includes a companys acknowledgement of some money Ive sent it to invest, which says: