Readers: Last year, Gary Comp of Sarasota sent us a memo he’d been saving for more than two decades. It was from his supervisor in the local government agency where Gary once worked. Only a bureaucrat could write a memo complaining about bad writing, and fill it with bad writing! Extraneous capitalizations, misspelling, grammatical mistakes and unintelligible wording. Yikes.
In 1975, Eliot’s first year of college, he was floored when a political science professor asserted there were not three but four branches of government. The known three: executive (president), legislative (Congress) and judicial (courts). The fourth: the bureaucracy.
We’ve talked about the breathless excess of TV news and the hurts-my-brain vocabulary of the corporate world. Today we tackle government bureaucracy, which — on your dime — regularly spits out items that either state the obvious or are hopelessly unintelligible. It seems there’s nothing in between.
In 2010, the federal government passed the Plain Writing Act. That should have done it. Right.
These are actual things said by local, state or federal agencies:
“We are monitoring the situation.”
Hello, Captain Obvious! Also, weather always is in the area! And, oh yeah: It’s “updated.”“We’ll provide more information as soon as it becomes available.”
Good thing they don’t provide information before it becomes available.“Our goal: To drive a continuous improvement culture of excellence that achieves a measurably high level of public satisfaction.”
“A proud, proactive, progressive team committed to innovation and leadership through the provision of services enhancing the quality of life in our community.”
“(Entity) will continue to be a healthy and progressive community that supports development opportunities, lifestyle quality and open, flexible governance.”
NBC
“Please listen carefully, as our telephone options recently have changed.”
This nearly always is a lie to get you to pay attention; many agencies run this same “recently changed” warning for months.“
Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/chCLmG9egoY
Next time: Hiding in plain sight.
Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong" features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police.” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we properly can credit you. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com
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NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!