Plain English Campaign
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December open courses - Christmas discount
- Plain English (7 December 2016 in Edinburgh)
- Plain English (14 December 2016 in Manchester)
Book two places on either course and receive a £50 discount on each place.
To book either of these courses, just send an email to us at info@plainenglish.co.uk and ask for a special offer booking form, or phone Terri on 01663 744409.
Latest news:-
2017 open courses - New Year discount
Book any 2017 open course before Christmas and receive a £50 discount on each place.
Contact Terri Schabel on: 01663 744409 for more details or email her at terri.schabel@plainenglish.co.uk
Bank of England jargon far too taxing
For decades now, we at Plain English Campaign have added our voice to those justifiably complaining about jargon in a number of areas. Financial jargon may well be at the top of the list of complaints we’ve received, and things don’t seem to be improving.
And with Brexit officially on the horizon (March/April has been mentioned) we really do need to know what is going on with the country’s banks and, in turn, our own finances.
Councils ignore plain English guidelines
You may recall recent Government guidelines that made plain English ‘mandatory for all of Gov.UK’. Well, it seems that ‘mandatory’ means different things to different councils.
A recent independent report looked closely at up to 100 pages on 191 local authority websites. The findings suggest that 82% of the information checked is ‘confusing readers by failing to use plain English’.
More beauty product nonsense
Have you ever bought a skin-care product after/despite hearing some impressive-sounding gobbledygook? The beauty product industry has seemingly always used hefty doses of waffle when marketing its creams, oils and ‘exfoliating’ gels.
But how many of the claims made about said products bear scrutiny? Unsurprisingly, very few.
Government Latin ban
The Government has taken the surprising step of banning Latin abbreviations from its websites.
So e.g., i.e. and etc will all soon be booted off GOV.UK pages, apparently because foreign readers find them ‘difficult to read’. A spokesman said the phrases could even confuse English speakers who were ‘under stress or in a hurry’.
The Internet Crystal Mark – why you need one
A website that puts obstacles in front of its audience is not doing its job properly. Get rid of any on your website, and get our Crystal Mark accreditation to boot.
Obviously, easy-to-understand text is very important. But what if that text is badly laid out, difficult to read or hard to find?