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This article appeared in the Autumn 2002 edition of Short Words, the newsletter of Tim Albert Training. It was written by Neville Goodman.

Cutting through the murk
Neville Goodman likes a new book on NHS jargon

The Complete Plain Words is recommended in all English guides to English usage; Sarah Carr's Tackling NHS Jargon makes no exception.

The irony is that the first edition of Sir Ernest Gowers' book was published in 1954 at the invitation of the Treasury, to improve official English. Civil servants have been taking no notice ever since.

That is a generalisation of course, but enough NHS managers are obscurantist enough to give Carr's book importance. Obscurantism is not just the use of obscure and complex language; it implies using language purposely to hide true meaning.

I suspect that only the highest levels of manager do this; but the lower levels are then left to interpret and implement the instructions from above.

Tackling NHS Jargon is of no use to the true obscurantist, but will help others see through the murk.

Carr categorises NHS jargon as (1) technical jargon, (2) gobbledegook and (3) buzz words. Technical jargon is unavoidable, and poor English only if unexplained. Carr gives good advice on what to explain and when.

I think the classification into gobbledegook and buzz words is too simple and at the same time has too much overlap. Carr tells us that gobbledegook is more difficult to get rid of than buzz words 'because it involves sentences, as well as words and phrases', but her list of NHS gobbledegook is almost all single words.

But it doesn't matter. Carr's examples are well chosen, and well rewritten. Where her book is different from most other style guides is in having the early chapters explain why plain language is a good thing, and how people can be persuaded not just to use it, but why it is better to do so. (I wish she had not written about NHS jargon having a 'negative impact on communication', but nobody's perfect.)

Her discussion of grammar is sensible, although I disagree that grammar is a set of rules that 'prescribes' how words and sentences are put together; the rules developed because they enabled meaning. Her parenthetic cross-reference on page 61 to a rule that does not matter - 'like infinitive splitting' - would induce spontaneous combustion in a grammarian, but I rather like it.

Tackling NHS Jargon - to use a book-reviewer's cliché - should be on the desks of all NHS managers. They should consult it whenever they write anything. How long they would remain in post if they did so I can only guess at.

Use plain language - and survive

Plain language makes the target audience more likely:

to read or listen to the communication fully,
to feel positive towards the producing organisation,
to believe the organisation is being open with them.

Whether you test and revise a document twice or more depends on its importance, the time available, and the budget. These factors affect how you test and revise, which can be:

by yourself, using guidelines, knowledge and experience,
with text-editing software,
by getting colleagues to comment,
by commissioning style experts,
by testing on a real audience.

Neville Goodman is a consultant anaesthetist in Bristol.

Tackling NHS jargon: getting the message across, Sarah Carr, Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2002.

5.09.02