I was reading about the latest list of terms that someone wants to ban when I got a seedbed* for a poll to facilitate a coterminous stakeholder engagement* with Newsviners on the subject. Whaddaya think?
Yes, yet another organization has looked at the ever increasing number of English terms flying around and found many of them lacking. This time its the Local Government Association that has come up with a list of 250 words and phrases that it believes the public sector should not use when communicating with the general public.
Hundreds of words and phrases have been added to a jargon "blacklist" in an effort to make Britain's public sector services less confusing.
In a new survey, the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents local authorities across England and Wales, says people are losing out on valuable information because of impenetrable technical language.
The list of 250 terms to be outlawed includes "wellderly," which refers to elderly people in good health; "webinar," or a live meeting via the Internet; and "under-capacitated," which means under-qualified or unfit.
The LGA believes that while there is a place for technical language to be used between experts, jargon must be removed from documents and publications that are aimed at the public.
"The public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases," said LGA Chairman Margaret Eaton. "Why do we have to have a 'webinar trialogue for the wellderly' when the public sector could just 'talk about caring for the elderly' instead?
Do you use jargon? A lot, a little or hardly at all, if ever? Take the poll and explain below. Also, feel free to mention which pieces of "newspeak" you would banish if you could. Just think of this as a webinar.* Come on, think outside of the box, people!
* seedbed = idea
* coterminous stakeholder engagement = a conversation with clients/customers/members
* webinar = an online presentation or interactive workshop