Search This Blog

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Gobbledegook now made illegal


We have all come across official jargon that doesn't make sense, and manuals that only serve to bewilder. You can read some wonderful examples in a couple of books by Nick Renton, called Compendium of Good Writing, and, Enjoy your English!

Well, according to the BBC News, the Local Government Association in the UK has just made the use of gobbledegook illegal.

LGA chairman Margaret Eaton said: "The public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases," and so irritating cliches such as "level playing field" and inscrutable terms like"re-baselining" have been prohibited.

They have compiled a list of the worst offenders (and I bet you can suggest some more):

Blue sky thinking
Can do culture
Coterminosity
Double devolution
Horizon scanning
Improvement levers
Pathfinder
Potentialities
Quantum
Revenue Streams
Subsidiarity
Symposium
Thinking outside of the box
Value-added

No comments: