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The Importance of Common and Everyday
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In
The King’s English (1906) the Fowler brothers laid down five
practical rules in the domains of vocabulary that anyone who wishes
to become a good writer should follow:
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Prefer the familiar word to the
far-fetched.
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Prefer the concrete word to the
abstract.
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Prefer the single word to the
circumlocution.
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Prefer the short word to the long.
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Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.
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“Plain
English” in Official Speech and Writing
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Since the Fowler brothers, the
tradition that upholds “Plain English” has been strongly
developed by A. P. Herbert, Ivor Brown, Eric Partridge,
Ernest Gowers and others
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One of its chief characteristics, which
is often condemned as “pompous”, has been the use of words
and phrases, drawn mainly from the Romance layers of
vocabulary
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Typically, the composing official
chooses words, which have little popular echo, because he or
she is afraid of being accused by superiors or the public of
lacking a proper command of “dignified”, remote, and
impersonal English
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On occasions, the language is liable to
deliberate abuse by individuals and social and professional
groups in order to mislead, distort, deceive, circumvent,
and obfuscate
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The official jargon has been derided by
names like officialese, barnacular, Whitehallese,
mandarine prose of the Civil Service in Britain,
Federal Prose, Pentagonese, bureaucratese,
and Washington Choctaw in the United States
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Copyrighted material |
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