the statements and answers in your Proposal are true.
Almost all officialese can be analysed, dissected and rendered into clear and readily understood English but some is so dense as to resist the sharpest and most probing of scalpel blades. Here’s an example, quoted by the Daily Telegraph, that consigns itself forever in the limbo of lost understanding:
ANY lump sum paid in accordance with Provision 7 of the Second Schedule shall be an amount equal to the Basic Nominal Fund that would be applied to calculate the Alternative Annuity under Provision 5 or Provision 12 of the Second Schedule on the assumption that the Annuitant had elected under Provision 4 of the Second Schedule that the date of his death was the Alternative Vesting Date or if greater an amount equal to the premiums received by the Society.
This is the sort of verbal hurdle that is still likely to confront average citizens at any time. Are we really expected to understand this guff? Or are we expected to hire a specialist or consultant to help us? Yet none of the sorry examples quoted here need have happened, if only the writers had held this conversation with themselves:
Q and A can save the day
| Q | What’s it all about? |
| A | It’s about when somebody is classed as disabled/the special duty of a landlord in a Housing Action Area/someone wanting a bus shelter built. |
| Q | What do we want to say? |
| A | We want to say that someone who can’t walk unaided is officially disabled; that a Housing Action Area landlord has to warn the council when there’s about to be a tenancy available; that we can’t afford the requested bus shelter just now. |
| Q | Very well. So why don’t we just SAY it! |
There is no excuse for obscurity. The English language, with its lexicon of nearly half a million words, is there to help any writer express any thought that comes into his or her head – even the virtually inexpressible. If we can’t manage this, we should give up and leave it to others. Or admit our faults and learn how to do better.
The long, long trail a-winding: Circumlocution
Bournemouth was on Monday night thrown into a state of most unusual gloom and sorrow by the sad news that the Rev A M Bennett – who for the last 34 years has had charge of St Peter’s Church and parish, and who has exercised so wonderful an influence in the district – had breathed his last, and that the voice which only about a week previously had been listened to by a huge congregation at St Peter’s was now hushed in the stillness of death . . .
Lymington Chronicle, January 22, 1880
When a writer or speaker fills you with the urge to shout ‘Get on with it!’, he or she is probably committing the sin of circumlocution – roundabout speech or writing, or using a lot of words when a few will do. In most of today’s newspapers the prose above would be a collector’s item.
Politicians, of course, are notable circumlocutionists; perhaps it’s an instinct to confuse, to prevent them from being pinned down. A few years ago a British political leader went on television to explain his attitude to the introduction of a single currency for all countries in the European Community.
Before you continue reading, you should probably find a comfortable seat . . .
No, I would not be signing up: I would have been making, and would be making now, a very strong case for real economic convergence, not the very limited version which the Conservatives are offering, so we understand, of convergence mainly of inflation rates, important though that is, but of convergence across a range of indicators – base rates, deficits and, of course, unemployemt – together with a number of indexes of what the real performance of economics are . . .
(Perhaps a brief tea-break would be in order here.)
. . . the reason I do that and the reason why that is an argument that must be won before there is any significant achievement of union is not only a British reason, although it is very important to us, it is a European Community reason: if we were to move towards an accomplished form of union over a very rapid timetable without this convergence taking place it would result in a two-speed Europe, even to a greater extent than now – fast and slow, rich and poor – and the fragmentation of the Community, which is the very opposite of what those people who most articulate the view in favour of integration and union really want; when I put that argument to my colleagues in, for instance, the Federation of Socialist Parties, many of whom form the governments in the EC, there is a real understanding and agreement with that point of view . . .
So what, precisely, might the gentleman have been hoping to convey? Probably this:
I do not want a single European currency until various other factors affecting the question have been dealt with. The factors are these . . .
A former US President, George Bush, was famous for his bemusing circumlocution, as in this speech defending his accomplishments:
I see no media mention of it, but we entered in – you asked what time it is and I’m telling you how to build a watch here – but we had Boris Yeltsin in here the other day, and I think of my times campaigning in Iowa, years ago, and how there was a – I single out Iowa, it’s kind of an international state in a sense and has a great interest in all these things – and we had Yeltsin standing here in the Rose Garden, and we entered into a deal to eliminate the biggest and most threatening ballistic missiles . . . and it was almost, ‘Ho-hum, what have you done for me recently?’
Circumlocution (also called periphrasis) typically employs long words, often incorrectly or inappropriately, and probably derives from a need to sound learned (a policeman referring to a bomb as an explosive device) or a desire not to offend (asking, for example, ‘I wonder if you would mind awfully moving to one side’ instead of the more direct ‘Get out of my way!’. Some forms of circumlocution may be excusable, but most are due to unthinking use of jargon and clichés in place of more precise (and usually briefer) expressions. Typical is the use of with the exception of for except; with reference to/regard to/respect to for about; for the very good reason that for because, and so on.
To avoid being accused of circumlocution, stick to the point! If you intend to drive from London to Manchester in the most direct way possible you’d hardly wander off every motoway exit and then dither about along country lanes. The same principle applies to effective communication.
It also pays to be aware of persistent offenders – circumlocutory phrases many of us are inclined to utter when the exact, simple word we want fails to turn up. Here’s a short list.
The Circumlocutionist’s Lexicon
apart from the fact that – but, except
as a consequence of – because of
as yet – yet
at the time of writing – now/at present
at this moment/point in time – now/at present
avail ourselves of the privilege – accept
be of the opinion that – think, believe
because of the fact that – because
beg to differ – disagree
by means of – by
by