As copywriters, we already have first-hand experience of how certain sectors’ obsession with ‘process’ and using impenetrable, jargon-heavy language is strangling the common sense out of, well, just about everything.
So how pleased we were, when this brilliant but worrying article appeared on the BBC News website.
In it, the author highlights just some of the evasive and meaningless language used in the social care system he and his autistic son depend on. Before giving some excellent examples, which we could match with similar atrocities from across the sectors, he points out how “language seems to mislead you right from the start,” and how someone’s “entire life is jargonised”.
In many ways it’s upsetting, because a combination of incompetency, and the very poor language used to spin it, creates a vicious cycle of nonsense that doesn’t help anyone – least of all the author or his son. In other ways, it’s unsettling, because, as we all know, this is not an isolated case. It’s absolutely everywhere, and you can’t help wonder how much simpler life would be without it.
And it’s so frustrating, because it’s completely unnecessary and so easy to remedy – yet so many businesses and organisations seem so bent on using it.
Anyway – here’s the article. It’s a great read:
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