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August 12, 2005
Pia Lopez
The Sacramento Bee, California

Mandy Carrillo, student member of the Sacramento City Unified School District board, has a point. The way staff and board members speak and write is not understandable to a majority of people. She'd like to see somebody be in charge of &lqt;translating&lqt; district documents for the public and/or providing a glossary of terms to people.

Better yet, why not simply speak and write in language that people understand from the get-go?

The use of bureaucratese, new fad terms and acronyms is a way of shutting out all but insiders. If district staff and school board members truly are interested in what they call &lqt;public engagement&lqt; (a fad term that seems to mean finding ways to involve people in issues affecting Sacramento schools), they need to speak and write simply and clearly. ...

Carrillo really is on to something. When board and staff don't speak and write clearly, it hampers their ability to connect with the public. It also shows fuzzy thinking. Board and staff don't need glossaries and &lqt;translated&lqt; documents. They need clear thinking about the audience they're trying to reach and a working knowledge of plain English before they present information to the public.

From: www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/13398732p-14240082c.html
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August 10, 2005

Royal Mail news release

Bad design, poor grammar and atrocious spelling could be costing UK businesses a staggering £41 billion in lost sales, a survey published today has found.

The survey, commissioned by Royal Mail, shows that businesses can't even rely on a great offer to win customers if their presentation is substandard. Nearly three-quarters of all customers (74 per cent) said they wouldn't trust businesses that used poor spelling or grammar, whilst almost a third (30 per cent) said they wouldn't buy any product or service from them.

Julia Strong, Deputy Director, National Literacy Trust, said: &lqt;Good literacy skills play a fundamental role in all aspects of life, including business. This survey not only highlights the significant impact staff with inadequate literacy skills can have on an organisation's competitiveness, but also emphasises the importance to business of providing skills training where literacy problems are identified.&lqt;

The findings also show that the personal touch remains important. One in four people (26 per cent) would decline to buy a product if their name was spelt incorrectly on a letter or mailing. ...

The problems have been amplified by the failure of companies to invest enough in employees with good spelling and grammar. Of the businesses surveyed, more than half of all employees (56 per cent) relied on computer spell-checks to proof their business documents, without even asking colleagues to proof them a final time. ...

August 10, 2005
News release
American Health Care Association

In an effort to provide consumers with the essential information on long term care, the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the National Center For Assisted Living (NCAL) have redesigned their consumer Web site: www.LongTermCareLiving.com. Established apart from the organizations member sites, the consumer site was expressly created for ease of use by the average consumer, allowing ready access to specific information on aspects of nursing facilities and assisted living residences. ...

The Web site and the accompanying brochures discuss in plain language the basic types of services offered by long term care facilities. They include key questions that consumers should ask about when planning for long term care. The Additional Resources section of the site directs consumers to useful information that can be found on the sites of other seniors-related organizations. The Glossary of Terms explains the meaning of frequently used terminology to assist consumers in reading and understanding the Web site. ...

From: www.ahca.org/news/nr050810.htm

August 04, 2005

... Not too many years ago, Chairman Levitt began a noble effort to encourage writing in plain English. It involved staff in Corporation Finance and Investment Management, the Office of Public Affairs, the General Counsel, and the Office of Investor Education and Assistance. There was an enthusiastic response from the likes of the Investment Company Institute, the Society of Corporate Secretaries, the American Bar Association, and The Bond Market Association. But many years later, despite the introduction of profile prospectuses, can we honestly say that there is adequate disclosure for the individual investor?

Some of you may have participated in the SEC's contest awhile back, to find the worst piece of disclosure &lqt;gobbledygook&lqt; and transform it into plain English. The winners received a $250 U.S. Savings Bond. I thought it was a great idea, and tried to get it going in Congress. My idea was to pare down monstrous appropriations bills into simple lists of where the pork was going. But the project failed when even the simple list ran to several hundred pages.

It's now been awhile since we issued a $250 Savings Bond here at the SEC. But Chairman Levitt's vision is still dead on. How hard do you think it would be today to find offensive legalese in almost any mutual fund prospectus or proxy statement? More tellingly, how hard would it be to find dense legalese in the SEC's own rules and publications?

The challenge of creating truly useful disclosure in the 21st century goes well beyond exhorting the use of everyday language, active voice, personal pronouns, and shorter sentences. It extends to the questions of what is disclosed, and why. We've got to continue to ask investors what they need -- in order for them to decide whether to purchase an investment in the first place; and to decide whether to hold or sell.

And when it comes to exhortations to write in plain English, the SEC has to practice what it preaches in its own rules and publications. Continuing to advance this noble initiative of my predecessors is but one of many ways in which I hope to build upon the successes of the recent past, and to ensure continuity, clarity, and consistency in the SEC's policies. ...

Full Story: www.sec.gov/news/speech/spch080405cc.htm