Plain English

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Here is a resource about plain English. About parts of speech; about how a mediocre lawyer can turn the active passive; make a simple preposition into a compound one in the blink of an eye. About how to nominalise verbs - or should I say, how to subject verbs to nominalisation. About how to ornament a perfectly sensible conjunction into a dense conjunctival phrase.

As I have grown older and, frankly, tired of waiting for it, I have come to disbelieve the efficient language hypothesis to which those who appeal to plain English subscribe. It will not arrive by itself; it will not evolve; it is not an unstable aberration waiting on some tipping point to correct itself. It is systemic. It is a function of how lawyers train, organise and evaluate themselves. The systemic forces encouraging prolixity are psychological, instinctive and visceral; they outweigh the intricate silken constructions our rational selves conjure in the air. They are the elephant to our logical rider. If we are to fix this, we need to come from a different place. We are trying that with the semantic code project. Nothing ventured; nothing gained.

Some intellectual impostures, then:

• Why: Why should I write in plain English?
• Why not: Why don't we write in plain English all the time?
• How: Ok, so how do I do this?
• Details - Any specific examples?