jargon

  • Language before computers

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Tech

    In recent decades, computing has had a major influence on language. I’m indebted to my old friend Mr Wong for the following round robin that landed in my inbox and admirably illustrates how computing, computers and IT have pervaded everyday language.

    Memory was something you lost with age.

    An application was for employment.

    A program(me) was a show on TV

    A cursor was someone who swears a lot.

    A keyboard was a piano.

    A web was a spider’s home.

    A virus was the flu.

    A hard drive was a long trip down the motorway.

    A mouse pad was a mouse lived.

    There were others – something about a floppy – but I’ll spare your blushes with those! 😉

  • Sir Humphrey’s newly banned words

    Steve WoodsLanguage

    The British Government has just updated its style guide for content written on the .gov.uk domain. It covers all aspects of writing material, including tone of voice, use of plain English, avoidance of Americanisms and the like.

    However, my eye was inevitably drawn to the proscribed bits and the style differences for Inside Government, i.e. when government department talks to government department, and in particular its section 4.1.3, entitled “Words to avoid”.

    For the benefit of passing mandarins and interested citizens, these are reproduced below, along with comment, both Sir Humphrey’s (in round brackets) and mine [in square brackets with the text in italics]:

    • agenda (unless it is for a meeting)
    • advancing
    • collaborate (use ‘working with’)
    • combating
    • countering
    • deliver (pizzas, post and services are delivered – not abstract concepts like ‘improvements’ or ‘priorities’) [I must part ways with Sir Humphrey here; services are provided, not delivered]
    • dialogue (we speak to people)
    • disincentivise [bravo!]
    • drive out (unless it is cattle)
    • empower [about time]
    • facilitate (instead, say something concrete about how you are helping)
    • focusing
    • foster (unless it is children)
    • impact (as a verb) [hallelujah!]
    • initiate
    • key (unless it unlocks something. A subject/thing isn’t ‘key’ – it’s probably ‘important’)
    • land (as a verb. Only use if you are talking about aircraft)
    • leverage (unless in the financial sense)
    • liaise [a very useful word for something non-commital, but a common spelling trap for the unwary 🙂 ]
    • overarching
    • promote (unless you are talking about an ad campaign or something)
    • robust [sometimes tough love is required]
    • slimming down (weight loss is slimming down. Everything else is probably removing x amount of paperwork, etc.)
    • streamline
    • strengthening (unless it is strengthening bridges or other structures)
    • tackling (unless it is rugby, football, some other sport)
    • transforming (what are you actually doing to change it)
    • utilise

    The banning of these words is justified as follows:

    We lose trust from our users if we write government ‘buzzwords’ and jargon. Often, these words are too general and vague and can lead to misinterpretation or empty, meaningless text. We need to be concrete, use plain English and be very clear about what we are doing.

    Will this result in more comprehensible communication from government? Only time will tell.

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