They’ve finally figured it out! Who are "they," you ask? Organizations of all types, big and small, public and private sector, across the globe. They’ve finally figured out that the different consumers of their content—customers, suppliers, partners, regulators, tech experts, and end users– all read at different levels and abilities.

Through sometimes painful experience, these organizations have learned that using Plain Language means clarity and ease of understanding for the reader, and that it pays off in customer satisfaction, loyalty, trust and “stickiness”!

Interest in plain language is on the rise. Recent sessions of our Writing in Plain Language webinar have been very well attended, and not just by employees at federal agencies trying to implement the Plain Writing Act. Nowadays many attendees are from the private sector.

During the webinars, I’m often asked, “What’s the connection between Information Mapping and plain language?” It’s a good question, and my answer is, “They’re one and the same.”

When it comes to propagating gobbledygook, lawyers are some of the worst offenders. In an earlier entry we mentioned that the legal profession’s love of confusing, convoluted language is hindering federal agencies in their attempts to implement the Plain Writing Act. When a reader sent us this impressive example of one agency’s “fog of legalese” we couldn’t resist the idea of rewriting it in plain language and then comparing it with the original.

With this entry we offer the last of three good reasons why the government and business organizations should continue to use gobbledygook instead of plain language in their communications with the public.

Last time, this blog featured the first of three good reasons why the government and business organizations should continue to use puzzling, confusing language in their communications with the public. In this entry, we provide the second reason why gobbledygook is the better way to go. 

Many Americans, puzzled and frustrated by incomprehensible communications from their government, suspect that the feds invented gobbledygook—and they’re right. The word “gobbledygook” was first used in the 1930’s by Maury Maverick, a two-term congressman. He coined the term to describe the confusing bureaucratic language he heard in the House of Representatives, which reminded him of the gobbling of wild turkeys back home in Texas.