I do find it amusing when someone tries to control language. The Local Government Association has just published a list of 200 words which it suggests “public bodies should not use if they want to communicate effectively with local people.”
Now, clearly some words it has picked on have no place in language like “Meaningful consultation” – if your consultation is not meaningful, it isn’t worth doing.
Helpfully, the LGA gives a list of alternatives for words that should be banned, but it has not really thought through its choices. Many of the changes completely lose the meanings of the original words.
Actioned -> do : The officer actioned/did the findings of the report.
Agency -> group : Watch it! a random group of people is an agency and can be did upon.
Advocate -> support : support is a completely different concept. Advocate comes from the Latin to “speak for”.
Ambassador -> leader : It could be argued that we are all ambassadors for something or someone, but we’re not all leaders.
Client/Customer -> person : so quite how do you distinguish a client or customer from people who aren’t?
Funding Streams/Income Streams/Pooled budgets/Revenue Streams -> money : money on its own is not descriptive enough, perhaps you need “pooled money” “funding money”
Quick hit/Quick win -> success : I see the LGA has taken a leaf out of the banking sector’s idea of success – very interesting.
Challenge -> problem : you see, when you challenge government bodies, you are actually a problem. I rather suspected this, but it’s good to know for sure.
It’s almost as if the LGA wants to expunge useful phrases from our vocabulary and replace them with strange contortions of long-windedness:
Cautiously welcome –> devil in the detail : I’m sure there’s a place in a sentence for “devil in the detail” but it’s not the same place as “cautiously welcome”.
Collaboration –> working together : they actually mean the same thing, but why use two words when one will do?
Democratic mandate –> elected to put people first : oh come on! We’re not fooled by that: Democratic Mandate = you’ve elected us, and now we can ignore you and do what we want in your name.
Holistic –> taken in the round : these people are so embedded in their world, they actually don’t know how ordinary people speak.
If you want to see the whole list, you can find it here: http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1716341
