Plain Speaking

I've just seen on Digital Spy that Naomi Campbell has won the Plain English Society's annual Foot in Mouth award. She apparently said "I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

There have to be worse contenders than that out there, surely?

Anyway, I haven't had a look at the Plain English Society's website for a while, so I thought I'd have a quick root around.  Their Latest News section has a list of the latest Golden Bull Award winners - can't see any internal communications in there this year though.  For you sporty types, there's also a 'best footballing quote of all time' section.

There's also a new Gobbledegook of the Week section on the site. I suspect this offending item may well be from an internal newsletter:

'An ATU capability will be retained on each APT, however in order to mainstream this work all other APT staff will be allocated to a Safer Neighbourhood on their area.'  (from a Greater Manchester Police newsletter)

They also have a blog. It hasn't really got a very blog-like feel to it, mind. It doesn't seem to be updated very often and it feels a bit oddly formal.  The post about spelling caught my eye though. I think I'm guilty of mis-spelling just about all the most common examples they list, such as:

• 66% of people spell 'strait-laced' incorrectly, using 'straight-laced' (yep)
• 58% get 'just deserts' wrong, using 'just desserts' instead. The word desert means deserve. (Must be my sweet tooth - my fingers type 'dessert' automatically)

I think most of us can probably count ourselves lucky that we've never been up for one of their Golden Bull awards. As I said in an earlier post today, I'm doing a lot of line manager training lately and it's making me really conscious of some of the jargon we use.

I've found myself surruptitiously deleting the odd slide or flicking past it really quickly, depending on the group. The 'engagement' word generally provokes much rolling of eyes and I've stuck a photo of a wedding up there to take the mickey out of the term before somebody else does.  The models that go with it are similarly received.  I use Hewitt Associates' say/stay/strive model because it's so simple, but it's been quoted back at me fairly sarcastically later on in the session.  (although some people do like it and I see them scribbling it down.)  One group was shaking their heads and groaning when someone quoted their manager as having talked about 'analysing key stakeholders'.

I say to all the groups that we all laugh knowingly at other people's use of jargon, but we're generally all as guilty as each other. And I put it to you, m'lord, that us internal communicators can be some of the worst culprits.

Sue