Now there’s a big word. Big words are under threat. People seem to have got it in for big words.
One of the jobs I do is for a large financial services company, making sure their customer communications are all properly written and, most importantly, readable. That means using plain English. But what is plain English?
Basically, words, sentences and paragraphs need to be short. Anglo-Saxon monosyllables rather than polysyllabic Latinisms, as my old French teacher used to say. You can check it by feeding your copy into an algorithm which spews out its reading age. The aim is to write for a reading age of twelve-and-a-half. That sounds pretty infantile, but then when you think about it, by the time you’re twelve-and-a-half you can pretty much read anything you’re ever going to need to read.
And that includes some pretty long words. Ever read Harry Potter? Most twelve-and-a-half-year-olds have. If you can get your head around wingardium leviosa and expecto patronum, you can probably understand the terms of an insurance policy, should you ever want to actually read them.
When I was twelve-and-a-half I was into The Jam. Paul Weller was something of a poet. In the song That’s Entertainment he sings: “Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude”. It caused quite a stir at the time. “Ooh, get Paul! Tranquility of solitude eh? That’s not very punk.”
He could have written “the calm peacefulness of being alone” but a) it wouldn’t have scanned and b) it wouldn’t have been as memorable. “Tranquility of solitude” was the apposite phrase. Moreover, everyone understood it.
The thing about the word ‘apposite’ that slightly undermines my point is that there is another, shorter word that means the same thing: ‘apt’. But try saying “the apt word” and then try saying “the apposite word”. The latter is more satisfying, isn’t it? There’s a rhythm to it, a flow, like finger picking on a guitar rather than a single strum. It trips off the tongue when you say it and it trips off the brain when you read it. And that, dear friends, makes it more readable.
Now, if your car insurance is coming up for renewal…
