Collins Improve Your Writing Skills. Graham King

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      This is a model of mixed officialese and legalese: you can almost see the glint of watch-and-chain on the Town Clerk’s egg-stained black waistcoat. How do we turn it into something like English, without losing any legal force the passage might be required to have?

      For a start, there appears to be no need for And take further notice. If the reader is not going to take notice, there seems little point in the writer’s finishing this masterwork. Next: under the provisions of Section 47(2) of the said Housing Act 1974 – the words the provisions of are redundant. Let’s lose them. The same goes for said.

      And next: in relation to any land consisting of or including. The lawyers can keep their consisting of or including, just in case they are struggling to cover, say, a backyard or front garden where someone lives in a caravan. But in relation to can be shortened to concerning. We have now brought concerning clumsily close to consisting, so let us replace consisting of with that consists of. The word Accommodation after Housing is not needed. And once Housing is left standing by itself, the capital H becomes even more obviously unnecessary.

      Plodding on: a landlord must not less than four weeks before the expiry by effluxion of time . . . Quickly to the dictionary – to seek out the meaning of this excitingly unfamiliar word, effluxion. We find:

      Efflux, n. Flowing out (of liquid, air, gas; also fig.) That which flows out. Hence effluxion, n. See effluence, n.

      From its meaning the word certainly suits the prose style, if nothing else. But we can do without effluxion. And we can also do without expiry.

      Now, what is the rest of the message? It seems that in a Housing Action Area, if a landlord knows that a tenancy is running out and no notice to quit is needed, he must warn the council, in writing, at least four weeks before that tenancy is due to end. So let’s tack that information on to our earlier repair:

       Under Section 47(2) of the Housing Act 1974, concerning any land that consists of or includes housing in a Housing Action Area, if a landlord knows that a tenancy is due to end without need of a notice to quit, he or she must tell the council, in writing, at least four weeks before the tenancy runs out.

      The passage is no nail-biter and is still scarcely slick or smooth. But it is quite readable and clear and certainly less forbidding than the original mess.

      How axiomatic is your bus shelter?

      Here’s a letter from the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive:

       I refer to your recent letter in which you submit a request for the provision of a bus passenger shelter in Ligett Lane at the inward stopping place for Service 31 adjacent to Gledhow Primary School. The stated requirement for a shelter at this location has been noted, but as you may be aware shelter erection at all locations within West Yorkshire has been constrained in recent times as a result of instructions issued by the West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council in the light of the Government’s cuts in public expenditure and, although it seems likely that the Capital Budget for shelter provision will be enhanced in the forthcoming Financial Year, it is axiomatic that residual requests in respect of prospective shelter sites identified as having priority, notably those named in earlier programmes of shelter erection will take precedence in any future shelter programme.

      Let us briefly mop our brows and try to fathom what the poor, befuddled author intended to say, before we set about helping him say it in plain English.

      At a guess, the passage could be summed up like this:

       I refer to your request for a bus shelter in Ligett Lane . . . Unfortunately, because of Government spending cuts, West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council has in turn ordered a curb on bus-shelter building. Although there may be more money for such work in our next financial year, shelters already on the waiting list will obviously be built first.

      This seems simple enough, so where did the author go wrong? Let us lay his Frankenstein’s monster on the dissecting slab:

      I refer to your recent letter in which you submit a request for the provision of a bus passenger shelter in Ligett Lane . . . If the writer identifies the subject clearly enough, there is no need to remind his correspondent of all the details. The correspondent wants a straightforward Yes, No, or even Maybe – with an explanation, if the answer is No or Maybe.

      The stated requirement for a shelter at this location has been noted . . . Of course it has. Otherwise the official would not be writing at all.

      but as you may be aware . . . This is word-wasting. It doesn’t matter if the correspondent is aware or not. The official’s job is to make sure the correspondent knows the facts now.

      shelter erection at all locations within West Yorkshire has been constrained in recent times . . . No purpose is served by at all locations. There is no reason to use within rather than in, no matter how widely this particular verbal fungus has spread.

      constrained should be replaced by the easier-to-understand restricted; and in recent times is a redundancy. So is as a result of instructions issued by.

      West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council is rendered with a rare and forceful clarity, with not a syllable wasted. But then we slide back . . . in the light of the Government’s cuts in public expenditure . . . The only meaning of in the light of, here, is because of. Your reader, rightly or not, will still blame the Government for the lack of a bus shelter, whether you use the clear or the foggy expression. So why head into the fog? (See Fog Index, page 75)

      and, although it seems likely that the Capital Budget for shelter provision will be enhanced in the forthcoming Financial Year . . . The reader is less interested in what the bus shelter fund is called than what it will do for him, and when. So ditch the Capital Budget. And since a shelter is a shelter, provision is yet another unneeded word.

      enhanced, in this context, means increased; there seems to be no reason to evade the more commonly-used word.

      it is axiomatic that . . . Your dictionary will tell you that an axiom is a self-evident statement, a universally accepted principle established by experience; axiomatic here is presumably meant to convey self-evidently true. If something is that obvious, the official is wasting paper and his correspondent’s time in saying it.

      residual requests in respect of prospective shelter sites identified as having priority, notably those named in earlier programmes of shelter erection . . . Thrusting the dissecting knife into the middle of this lot, we are left with shelter requests not met by earlier building programmes to which we add will take precedence in any future shelter programme. There’s not a lot to argue about here, for once – apart, perhaps, from the repetition of shelter programme.

      The deskbound, wordbound Frankenstein who created our monster may be saddened, even angry, at the way we have slimmed down his offspring. But at least he – and more importantly, his correspondent – can now discover what he really meant to say.

      Missives such as our bus shelter letter don’t have to be long to lose their way. Here’s a paragraph from an insurance policy, hunted down by the Plain English Campaign:

       The due observance and fulfillment of the terms so far as they relate to anything to be done or complied with by the Insured and the truth of the statements and answers in the Proposal shall be conditions precendent to any liability of the Company to make any payment under this Policy.

      Follow? Perhaps after five minute’s concentration you might feel that you have fully understood it. The Campaign’s recommended version would no doubt leave the insurance company gasping for words:

      We will only make a payment under this policy if: