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Letter to the Eastern Daily Press |
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Written by Alan Shaw
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Saturday, 05 February 2005 |
Malcolm
Kerby's letter (Saturday February 5th, 2005) rightly calls into
question the increasing use of what have become political "buzz words"
such as "sustainable", "holistic", "stakeholders" etc. I can add yet
another : the use, instead of "coordinated" of " joined up", as in
"joined up writing".
Are civil servants now recruited from under
- performing primary schools? The academics and engineers who Malcolm
Kerby lumps with civil servants are surely only using this language
because nowadays civil servants apparently understand no other and, of
course , they hold the keys to the moneybags.
A similar situation was noted in the civil service just after the
Second World War. To counter it a brilliant civil servant, Sir Ernest
Gowers, wrote the text book "Plain Words: a Guide to the Use of
English" (1948) . If memory serves, a copy was issued to every civil
servant. That this was an ongoing problem was indicated by Sir Ernest's
futher publications : "ABC of Plain Words" (1951) and " The Complete
Plain Words" (1954). Was he too similarly exasperated?
Alan Shaw
Aylsham
Norwich |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 25 April 2005 )
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