Do we make ourselves plain?

“What is clear language, anyway?” When I’m talking about writing with people in international organizations, this question sometimes pops up. It’s sounds simple, but there are so many ways to answer it. Is it about how to write clearly? Or is it about what clear language looks like?

My favourite answer? Clear language uses sentences that you only have to read once.

That means clear language saves time – and money. Clear language is self-explanatory (there’s another definition). If you send an unclear email, the recipient has to take the time to write back asking what you meant. If that email went out to a large number of people, the amount of extra time required can be huge.

One of the world’s leading clear writing agencies, the Write Group in New Zealand, has a web page where you can calculate how much time and money you’re losing to unclear language. The Write Group has trained thousands of New Zealand public servants, sowing the seeds for the passing by New Zealand’s parliament in 2022 of the Plain Language Act. The act recognizes that it is especially vital for a government to communicate clearly with citizens about services, entitlements and regulations.

Many countries have acknowledged the crucial difference that clear language can make. In 2010 the United States passed the Plain Writing Act. In 2023, the International Organization for Standardization published the Plain Language Standard. Here is its answer to our question (for plain, read clear):
‍“A communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended readers can easily: find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information.”

The Plain Language Standard, ISO 24495, was drafted by 140 experts from 25 countries – including Lynda Harris, founder of Write Group – and has since been adopted by many governments around the world.  

How odd, then, that less than three years after the passing of New Zealand’s plain language legislation, the current government is repealing it – on the basis that it is “a waste of time and money”. According to Judith Collins, the public service minister, “Rather than fix a problem ,it created a problem whereby plain language officers had to be appointed, thePublic Service Commission had to produce guidance documents and then agencies had to report to someone on something no one was quite clear on.”

You might think that a government that prides itself on being pro-business would be interested in the money-saving benefits of plain language – and would understand the need to make a small investment to reap those benefits. But other forces seem to be at work. It’s fashionable to systematically undo the work of previous governments – and, perversely, to roll back efforts to make public life more accessible.

“We need to trust the judgment and expertise of our public servants to communicate in language every taxpayer can grasp,” Collins says. Well, good luck with that. The judgement and expertise of public servants are what created the need for a plain language movement.

There is a precedent of sorts. In March 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed Executive Order 12044, requiring that each regulation be “written in plain English and understandable to those who must comply with it”. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan rescinded Carter’s order and allowed individual agencies to decide whether to make plain writing a priority. Most didn’t.

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Why is it that the starting point – in international organizations as in government departments – is so often difficult writing rather than clear writing? After all, when we speak to each other we usually aim to make ourselves clear. The answer lies way back in the origins of writing itself. For millennia it was the preserve of the powerful, and literacy was low. The use of writing has always been about power. But that’s a story for another day.

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