OPINION | EDITORIAL: Jarring jargon

Uses and abuses of language


Paul Greenberg used to advise: When you're done writing something, read it out loud. If it sounds like a conversation, you're onto something. If it doesn't, throw it away.

Government(s) should have such rules.

Some New Zealand lawmakers are pushing a bill to make government more understandable by ridding it of jargon. The goal is laudable enough (except we would never be able to get away with the word "laudable" if Greenberg were still around). Lawmakers in New Zealand say they want to make it easier on citizens to keep up with government, and access public services. ("Access public services" would not make it past Greenberg's red ink, either.)

The Plain Language Bill in New Zealand, says The Guardian, "will require government communications to the public be 'clear, concise, well-organized, and audience-appropriate.' For the country's anti-gibberish brigade, it's a victory: they say clear language is a matter of social justice and a democratic right."

In this country, such rules would certainly make it easier to figure out what the IRS wants.

Jargon has jarged its way from the boardroom to the bored rooms of government. If the brass of private industry wants to talk and write without being understood, that's one thing. They're wasting their own company's money. But government is supposed to work for us all, because we all pay for it. We can understand the desire to force it to make sense.

Why are the homeless "undomiciled" these days? Can we dialogue about empowering stakeholders? Who came up with "dehiring" staff? Isn't the word "utilize" just a longer way to say "use"? Just as "thought processes" is replacing simply "thinking." And a military report that says a new weapon would "render non-viable" the enemy doesn't seem like an improvement over "kill."

(If we're going to take a switch to the government's language, why not get 'em early in J-school, too? If we never see the word "gift" as a verb again, it'll be too soon. And where else besides a newspaper story will you find "bellwether" or "incentivize"?)

We remember the late, great P.J. O'Rourke, who once had an explanation for why government semi-communicates this way--so the rest of us won't pay attention:

"Government is so tedious that sometimes you wonder if the government isn't being boring on purpose. Maybe they're trying to put us to sleep so we won't notice what they're doing . . . . Yet whenever we regular citizens try to read a book on government or watch one of those TV public affairs programs about government or listen to anything anybody who's in the government is saying, we feel like high school students who've fallen two weeks behind in algebra class. Then we grow drowsy and torpid, and the next thing you know we are snoring like a gas-powered weed whacker. This could be intentional. Our government could be attempting to establish a Dictatorship of Boredom in this country. The last person left awake gets to spend all the tax money."

And for putting us to sleep, jargon is better than any lullaby.

Here's a suggestion: Fewer poli-sci majors should write laws. Give us some English majors instead.


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