Feds to stop legal mumbo-jumbo

[Unidyne]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110519/ap_ ... bbledygook

Yes, it's a new law. According to the article:

"Pursuant to regulations promulgated thereunder and commencing in accordance with a statute signed herein by President Barack Obama, the government shall be precluded from writing the pompous gibberish heretofore evidenced, to the extent practicable.
That sentence contains 11 new language no-nos.
Obama signed the Plain Writing Act last fall after decades of effort by a cadre of passionate grammarians in the civil service to jettison the jargon.
It takes full effect in October, when federal agencies must start writing plainly in all new or substantially revised documents produced for the public. The government will still be allowed to write nonsensically to itself."

There's even a Government manual: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guid ... bigdoc.pdf

Whatever will the anti-tax activists do without their wonderful quasi-legalistic gibberish?

[Pottapaug1938]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110519/ap_ ... bbledygook

Yes, it's a new law. According to the article:

"Pursuant to regulations promulgated thereunder and commencing in accordance with a statute signed herein by President Barack Obama, the government shall be precluded from writing the pompous gibberish heretofore evidenced, to the extent practicable.
That sentence contains 11 new language no-nos.
Obama signed the Plain Writing Act last fall after decades of effort by a cadre of passionate grammarians in the civil service to jettison the jargon.
It takes full effect in October, when federal agencies must start writing plainly in all new or substantially revised documents produced for the public. The government will still be allowed to write nonsensically to itself."

There's even a Government manual: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/guid ... bigdoc.pdf

Whatever will the anti-tax activists do without their wonderful quasi-legalistic gibberish?

They'll cling to their quasi-legalistic gibberish like a drowning person clings to a life ring. Back when I was practicing law, I'd write up my pleadings and my wills in plain language; and people didn't trust them "because they don't sound legal". They'll use that excuse, and probably add the excuse that (reverent bow of head) Common Law (head back up) requires that sort of language. You gotta use the RIGHT Magic Words if you want the magic to work....

[The Operative]

I believe you left out the best sentence from the article...

"By July, each agency must have a senior official overseeing plain writing, a section of its website devoted to the effort and employee training under way."

Any side bets on when someone will attempt to sue some agency for not writing plain enough?

[Judge Roy Bean]

Government as we know it will grind to a halt if this is somehow enforced.

There is no better protection for the tyranny of a bureaucrat than the language of obfuscation.

[fortinbras]

Serious error. The Feds will stop the Mumbo, but not the Jumbo.

[Gregg]

Government as we know it will grind to a halt if this is somehow enforced.

There is no better protection for the tyranny of a bureaucrat than the language of obfuscation.

A good part of the reason is the inability for the simple minded and litigious cretin class who cannot fathom the meaning of the word "includes" and countless other plain language used in the statutes now.

[The Dog]

We had this in Britain some years ago.

The problem is that everything gets reduced to babytalk with the result that you then need a lot more writing to define precisely the terms used in the babytalk. This results in a need to use smaller point sizes to fit the text into the available space or a much longer document, making the "small print" longer or smaller (if not both).

Wouldn't it be a lot better to teach people to understand the words used?

The meaning of "regulations promulgated thereunder", should be obvious from context.

"flow rates of thermoplastics by extrusion plastometer" comes from the title of an ASTM standard (an extrusion plastometer being simply a device to measure melt flow rates of plastics).

and is the word "organoleptic" that hard to understand (being a lot shorter than the alternative suggested)?

[Nikki]

Unfortunately (as was alluded to, above) as the the language becomes simpler, it also becomes less precise, thereby creating potential loopholes.

Take, for example, the term "child" as used within the Internal Revenue Code.

In common language, the word child defines either a human being who is not an adult or a familial relationship.

However, for purposes of the income tax -- especially with respect to allowing an exemption or (shudder) the earned income tax credit -- the LAWMAKERS (the critters up on the Hill) have established specific (and contradictory) criteria as to what a 'child' is under certain circumstances. There is a difference between a child of certain ages, between adopted and born into the family, between places of residence, and so on.

Simplifying the language must start with the laws.

Next, one of the reasons for complex language, such as in the brownie recipe cited in the original article, is that -- absent such language -- vendors have used language flexibility to their advantage. If the recipe didn't specify the solidity and density requirements for the brownie, the government might end up being forced to buy something approaching brownie soup or brownie souffle.