Getting rid of jargon
What is Jargon?
Jargon means technical words that are difficult for most people to understand - like 'consultative process', 'user-led' and 'symposium'.
A recent survey by the Local Government Association has picked out some good examples used by councils in Britain. Here are our favourites:
Capacity Building- Community engagement
- Engaging users
- Mainstreaming
- Pooled budgets
- Predictors of Beaconicity
- Resource allocation
- Sustainable communities
- Transformational
(from the BBC web site list of banned local authority words)
What's wrong with jargon?
Jargon leaves people out and can make them angry- It confuses the message that the information is meant to get across
- It takes people longer to understand the information
- People might give up trying to understand if they find the words too confusing.
As Margaret Eaton from the Local Government association says:
"Councils have a duty, not only to provide value for money to local people, but also to tell people what they get for the tax they pay. People would be furious if they have no idea of what services their cash is paying for and how they should get to use them."
She says:
“Without explaining what a council does in proper English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote."
Jargon and people with learning difficulties
Using difficult words is a real problem for people with learning difficulties.
Often people with learning difficulties have a greater need to use public services and to know what benefits and services they can get.- By law, public organizations must make their information accessible to people using their services and this includes people with learning difficulties.
- People with learning difficulties often find reading difficult anyway, and using words that are not used in every day speech makes it harder for them to understand..
Many people are thinking about how best to communicate with people. Many organizations are asking Working with Words to make their information easier to understand for everyone - not just people with learning difficulties.
Some web sites and stories about jargon:
- Local Government Association (LGA) story about their ban on jargon
- BBC news story about the LGA ban on council jargon
- Plain English Campaign
- A-Z of Alternative words - a Plain English Campaign publication (pdf, 176kb)
Tell us your jargon!
Please email us any jargon that you see so that we can put it on this web page. We will not give the names of the organisations who produced the jargon.
