What is it about big words? Why do we use pompous words or jargon when shorter, plainer words will do just the same, or even better?
Note that big words and jargon are not the same, but they almost always have the same effect – confusing the reader. Big words are, well, big words, and jargon refers to terms of a trade or profession that are usually well understood only by members of that trade or profession.
Read the rest of the article here.
Long sentences come at you like hissing snakes, says Martin Cutts in his Oxford Guide to Plain English. He prescribes an average sentence length of 15-20 words. GOV.UK says they try to not go beyond 25 words.
A study conducted by the American Press Institute found that readers understood 90% of the information when sentences were at 14 words and less than 10% when they were at 43 words.
That’s a lot of research stacked up in favour of shorter sentences (and there’s more, by the way). But remember this is the “average sentence length”. Which means that not every sentence needs to be short.
But what is it about long sentences that makes them so difficult?
For one, it’s too many ideas crammed into one sentence. It’s as if the author is breathlessly gushing out everything they have to say, afraid that if they slow down they might just lose the reader.
But they have already lost the reader by the time the reader is past the 30th, 50th, or, God forbid, the 100th word. If at all the brave reader makes it to the last word, they have no clue how they ended up there.
Secondly, it just doesn’t seem like the author is considerate to the reader’s needs.
In the image below, you will see an excerpt from a letter written by a forest department official to another official in the town municipality. It says that some trees have been considered dangerous, are coming in the way of road expansion, and hence need to be cut. It asks the town municipality to cut the trees, prepare a list of the trees cut, and ferry them to the forest depot.
Now, this letter is between two bureaucrats. So you may say let them wallow in their own verbosity. But this is a public document. People have the right to understand it. And, have no doubt about it, the officer would write in the same way even if they were addressing members of the public.
I had blogged about the letter and its context some time ago. Recently, Vikram Hegde, a Supreme Court advocate and plain language enthusiast, pinged me about this post. He said,
“I have been noticing this specific type of unpunctuated writing in Indian languages, in government documents of all types. We often see a sequence of events over 20 years being described in one sentence, in an FIR or a chargesheet.
I used to think that this happens because the authority is setting out the circumstances in which it is deciding to take a step. It wants to enumerate all the circumstances and reasons in the same sentence so as to directly link it to the action. But I have come to realize that authorities utilize this form of complex writing to actively avoid scrutiny of their decisions. Writing a jumble of reasons enables them to avoid tying the decision down to any one reason which may or may not be valid or applicable. Bureaucratese is active avoidance of accountability!”
Very valid point! If you are ever questioned about something, there’s all that gobbledygook you can hide behind.
It’s not surprising that long sentence-paragraphs such as these are written by people in a position of authority. When you don’t understand them, they believe they have some power over you. They can tell you you have no idea how the government works, or law works, or some such thing.
Thirdly, it takes a lot of time to understand these sentences. The reader has to re-read, break up the sentence, and organize the information in their head to make any sense of it. So the reader is rewriting and editing as they go – something authors have no business asking of the reader.
Fourthly, errors can creep in when the sentence has gone out of control. In the example I have used here, there are quite a few typos and spelling mistakes. Obviously, the author is themselves so drained by the burden of writing such sentences that they couldn’t be bothered with mundane things such as spelling. Sometimes, these errors can further muddle up the reader.
So, my friend, want to write clearly? Start with writing shorter sentences.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a plain language writer, editor, consultant, and trainer. If you wish to hire me for plain language services, please use the contact form on the right.
Translation of the title: India will read labels, but how?
I love
Revant Himatsingka’s videos on food and nutrition. I first came to know about
him from the Label Padhega India campaign. He urged people to read
the labels on food products before they buy them. The campaign became hugely
popular, thanks to Revant’s candid style and approach of putting data first. It
tried to bring transparency to the food industry – something sorely lacking in India.
It hits you
hard when you consider that this industry is worth nearly USD 30 billion and hardly any rules to govern
the production and sale of junk food. No wonder companies from the world over
are making a beeline to India.
As if on
cue, the Supreme Court recently asked the Indian government to come up with guidelines to
clearly display nutritional information on the labels of food products.
Both the
Label Padhega India campaign and the apex court’s directive are all headed in
the right direction. Companies must responsibly announce what they are trying
to feed consumers. There is no question about it.
However,
both these moves miss a point. It’s great for Indians to start reading food
labels. But will they understand what they read?
For one,
the food labels are all in English, cutting off access for most Indians right
away. Revant suggests a hack for this: the label must include a QR code
which can link to a webpage with nutritional information in all Indian
languages. However, I doubt if this step is enough to make labels easy to
understand.
Why so?
That’s because plain language standards are sorely lacking in India and you can
expect the same on food labels.
For
example, when it says “fortified”, it means “added” in the food labelling
context. So why not say “added” in the first place?
But plain
language is not just about using simpler words. It is about the audience
and what the audience finds plain enough. In countries like India where health
awareness is seriously lacking, what does “low fat” mean? How low is low? According
to Better Health Channel, anything calling itself low
fat must contain less than 3% fat for solid foods (1.5% for liquid
foods). So, if something is being advertised as 93% fat-free, it still has 7%
fat, which is not low.
Even saying
that a soft drink contains x amount of caffeine may not be enough, as we don’t
know how much caffeine is too much for us. Gov.UK recommends that apart from
declaring the nutrition information in ml or mg, we also need clear warnings
that say “High caffeine: not recommended for children or pregnant women”.
Then again,
a label is not just about the text. We need plain design as well. The US
FDA has detailed guidelines on how different elements of a food label must be displayed [pdf].
Labelling shouldn’t be about marketing. Take this label of a popular wheat shavige (seviyan/vermicelli) brand.
It
says, “No added maida”. It made me wonder if the vermicelli is made of maida (refined
flour) or wheat? When the ingredients
list clearly states that it contains wheat semolina, why bother to say that
your product doesn’t have something it is not supposed to have anyway? If the company
meant to market its product to consumers who want to avoid maida, it could have
simply said, “No maida”. Just don’t add the word “added” to serve your
marketing purposes. It’s confusing!
Of course, given
the low level of health literacy and that fact that Indians reach out for the next
pack of chips or the next bottle of cold drinks without a qualm, why bother
with nutritional information? Will labelling something as highly salty or
sugary stop the Indian consumer?
There are
many answers to this, but perhaps the most relevant is that we are making a big
assumption by saying that people don’t care. How do we know that for a fact? Has
a genuine attempt been made to inform the consumer? Do we have data to show comparisons
between sales before and after clear nutritional labelling was provided?
“Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
Prefer the short word to the long.
Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.”
This was the advice the Fowler brothers gave in their book, The King’s English, more than a century ago.
Take a moment to mull over their words. Is there anything that sounds illogical?
Not really, if you ask me. It’s the soundest advice aspiring writers can get. Yet even today we find it difficult to follow.
“Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.”
Why do we want to use highfalutin words when we can inform more easily with everyday words? Why does every piece of writing become an opportunity to impress, not express? Even a specialist audience would rather not have to deal with jargon. Supreme Court Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Boppanna sent back a verdict by the Himachal Pradesh High Court and said it was “incomprehensible” and “difficult to navigate through”.
“Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.”
Concrete words paint a picture to the reader more than abstract words can. I remember Jyoti Sanyal would often tell us in journalism school, “Show, don’t tell.” He meant that we must use words to describe the scene to the reader in such a way that they can “see” what we are talking about as if they were physically present. Great writing often makes you feel this way. Among the recent texts I’ve read, William Dalrymple’s The Age of Kali reminded me of Sanyal’s edict:
“Then, quite suddenly, a carved wooden temple rath appeared in the centre of the principal ceremonial avenue from a side passage, pushed by a swarm of half-naked figures. Their progress was lit by a succession of temple priests holding brightly burning yellow splints dipped in camphor oil. In a silken tabernacle at the top of the rath lay the golden image of the goddess herself, garlanded and draped in cloth-of-gold her nose-jewel flashing in the flames of the priests’ burning splints.”
I could almost see the goddess’ gleaming nose ring. That’s the power of descriptive, tangible words.
“Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.”
The sooner you can get to the point, you do everyone a favour. But mind you, it is not easy to write succinctly. As someone famously said, “I’d have written a shorter letter, but didn’t have the time.” Writing briefly requires that you understand fully well the subject of your text and can express it lucidly, without reaching out for crutch words.
“Prefer the short word to the long.”
We read and understand shorter words faster. They are also usually simpler and more familiar. Longer words are not banned but must be used only if necessary. Feel no shame in using everyday words – in fact, your readers will thank you!
“Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.”
Here, the Fowler brothers meant that writers in England must prefer English words more than Latinate words, which weren’t really in daily parlance and only served to intimidate readers and bloat the ego of the writers. In the Indian context, we must prefer words from the regional language or our mother tongues rather than Sanskrit words. Our official documents are replete with Sanskrit words that nobody understands. Whenever I see any attempt to translate from English to a regional language [pdf], it is almost always Sanskritized. Again, knowledge of Sanskrit seems to be something to show off.
Note that all the statements start with “prefer”. Meaning, that these are guidelines in the truest spirit and not an attempt to straitjacket writing.
A few days ago, I booked a train ticket on the IRCTC website. I then had to cancel it for some reason. I tried to look up the cancellation and refund procedures. It wasn’t an easy find or read. I noted a few things down on how the website could be better with plain language and design and improved user experience.
For those not aware, irctc.co.in is the official website of the Indian Railways for online ticket booking. With a monthly traffic of about 13 million, it is one of the most visited websites in India.
User experience
The cancellation and refund procedures are hidden away as PDFs. Why so, when we know that PDFs cause frustration and slow task completion. A webpage makes for better user experience than a pdf: Its easier to navigate, is interactive, and does not require you to download it.
I wrote about the status of plain language in India some time ago. This is an update to that post.
>> In March this year, the then Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud asked judges to write judgments “in a language comprehensible to the common people”. I wish I had a link available to the full text of his speech, but I don’t. This is perhaps the most important call for plain language till date in India.
>> Vidhi updated its manual for legal drafting and renamed it SARAL. “The SARAL Manual builds on the work of the 2017 manual and intends to compile learnings from the past five years to develop a more comprehensive, holistic approach toward legal drafting,” it says. SARAL is open to public feedback. I have given them mine. You can give yours too.
>> Earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued guidelines for the draft offer document to be in clear language. The draft offer document is submitted by a company to SEBI before an initial public offering (IPO).
If the guidelines are not followed, SEBI says, it may return the document to the company.
>> In "Gauging Linguistic Complexity of Regulatory Communication: A Case Study for India" published in its April bulletin, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) used readability indicators to look at the language of banking regulations. It concluded that "most circulars require at least graduate level education, which is generally the education level of commercial bank employees."
While this step from the RBI is welcome, the case study stops at assessing internal banking content. The next move has to be to look at the complexity of the language of the forms, contracts, agreements and other documents that banks present to their customers.
.png)
There has been a flurry of articles on plain language, mostly focused on its use in law. I came upon appeals for a plain language act by law students here and here. The term plain language is now heard more often in India than ever before. Jobs too are opening up in plain language, though mostly for plain-language summary writers.
While these are good developments in themselves, we now have to step it up and make sure that it is not mere noise. We need to take substantial steps towards actually adopting plain language.
I say this because some of the appeals, articles, or guidelines for plain language that I have mentioned here are themselves not plain. So it leaves me in doubt if the authors understand what it is to speak clearly. However, I will park these misgivings of mine for now and hope that we can keep working towards more clarity.
