When Worlds and Words Collide - your resource guide to plain English Published July 2004 What happens when the worlds of marketing, new technologies and corporate-speak collide?  The result is a decay in public language that is beginning to agitate many and is likely to increasingly put those who prepare, implement or commission communication in the ‘hot seat’. The issue was triggered last year by Deloittes, who released a survey into what people consider are the most annoying words and phrases. At the same time it unveiled a piece of software that ‘kills’ them. Australian author and former Keating speechwriter Don Watson followed. His provocative book - ‘Death Sentence’ - contained many fine local examples of meaningless communication. Recently the London-based Plain English Campaign has emerged with a crusade backed by yet another survey.  Among its findings was that the most irritating phase in the English language is “at the end of the day”.  “At this moment in time” came second closely followed by  “with all due respect”. Corporate and marketing communicators play a role in the evolution of language.  After all, what they write represents a significant proportion of what is printed and reported - and that is public language. But so too do those who commission - or approve - communication that is sloppy. Marketers of all manner of products and services are to blame.  But in particular IT marketers would have to be among the worst offenders, mainly because they like to think they’re part of a unique club, where membership is conditional upon being able to converse in acronyms. Add to all this, everyday jargon, buzzwords and cliches and it soon becomes clear that these are challenging times for the public. Professional communicators should be addressing the issue of how to actually give a simple comprehendible message in a world that seems to increasingly encouraging, or at least accepting, the use of corrupted public language, jargon, buzzwords and cliches. Within the PR Influences web site we’ve created a special section containing a cross-section of resources on this topic including: Deloittes ‘Bullfighter’ - cute software designed to run like a spellchecker, but this one checks for jargon. More on Don Watson’s ‘Death Sentence’ - how did we get here and who is responsible. Plain English - a UK site that has a number of free plain English guides mainly of use if you write a lot of paralegal documents. Buzzkiller.net - a journalists’ site that deals with what they hate most plus, see how stupid some PR people can be. Acronym builder - amaze your friends and colleagues with meaningless TLAs.  It’s fast and it’s fun. A Style manual for authors, editors and printers - after you’ve had your fun and seen the extent of the issue it’s good to come back to a recognised standard for style.

PR Influences Australian Public Relations Newsletter. Article: Writing media releases: Resource guide to plain English. Information Content: Marketing, Corporate Communications