Even singers and television personalities have been recruited by the French government to bring clarity to the impenetrable civil service language. Monsieur Sapin, the Civil Service Minister, used a novel idea for the reform: les fonctionnaires (civil servants) are there to serve citizens! They have set up a committee to simplify official language and are rewriting 1600 forms.

Some experts see it as the biggest shake-up in civil service French since 1539 when Francis I dropped Latin as state language.

Our international pilgrimage shows that governments, securities commissions and auditors' general departments are using plain language to slay doublespeak dragons. We have Merwan Saher, a provincial Assistant Auditor General and Joyce Maykut, a Vice Chair of a securities commission here to present organizational case histories to you.

Here's the language that we seek to eliminate: indecipherable prose, uncivil servant-speak, circuitous sentences, academic jargon illiteracy, waffle, evasive language, legal mumbo jumbo, bureaucratese, doublespeak, jargon, passive voice verbs.