| 3. |
Around 15,000 documents carry a clarity
badge from one of the three organizations that give them. Our badge is the
Clear English Standard. Documents can display it if they've been through our
editing process and met our published criteria. Basically we act like an
editorial oyster, filtering out all the slime, excrement and grit. Among our
customers is the Financial Services Authority, the main financial services
regulator in the UK, so most of their public leaflets and information
factsheets about pensions and investments carry our logo, and we also have a
version of the logo for use on accredited websites such as theirs. |
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| 4. |
An English product is starting to
revolutionise writing-skills training. It's a product we sell (demo from
www.clearest.co.uk) although we didn't
make it - I only wish we had. It's called StyleWriter and it's an electronic
editing program that everyone can have on their PCs. In the USA, the Federal
Aviation Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have installed
it almost universally, alongside a customized one-day electronic writing-skills
course. Truly I believe this will change the world and make the manufacturers
very rich indeed! |
Twenty words, now,
about progress in France, Germany and Italy. Here it's fair to say that plain
language is not all that hot, but things are warming up. Clarity magazine no.
47 (www.clarity-international.net)
gives more details. In the EU bureaucracy, the European Commission's
translation department, headed by Emma Wagner, has led a popular and
influential Fight the Fog campaign. We at Plain Language Commission have helped
her by publishing 'Clarifying Eurolaw' and latterly 'Clarifying EC Regulations'
(both on free download from www.clearest.co.uk). These show that what
some EC lawyers regard as mission impossible is really just a stroll in the
park.
I come to an event
like this almost as to a religious retreat, to revitalise my belief in the
cause. For me, the conference has succeeded in doing that, and I hope it has
done the same for you.
I have no doubt
about it - as Joni Mitchell and her friends used to sing in Cabbagetown - 'we
shall overcome'. Or should that be 'we will overcome'? |
