Although any of us who commit thoughts to paper or blog can be prone to flights of purple prose or loggorhea, hopefully none of us have yet fallen into the trap of excessive legal/corporate bollocks in our personal and working lives.
Working for a non-profit concerned with preventing juvenile deliquency, I am acutely aware that I am in a prime spot for the adoption and regurgitation of byzantine jargon. As a result I think sometimes my report and grant writing trends too far in the opposite direction and I end up with Hemmingway-like akin to this:
"The kid liked to fish. The kid liked to rob his gran. The kid was nuts."
If that kind of overkill keeps me away from the baleful gaze of the Plain English Awards for the most incomprehensible use of the language its worth it. Rumsfeld won last year for "known unknowns" but this year's crop are nearly as good:
BBC NEWS: Come again? The Plain English Awards
To quote from the article: "It's time again for the annual Plain English Awards, when the worst examples of gobbledegook win recognition. So who, err, won?
The annual Foot in Mouth award winner for the most baffling statement by a public figure went to Conservative MP and journalist Boris Johnson for the following nugget of nebulousness:
"I could not fail to disagree with you less.""
More here:
Plain English Awards
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