Plain English
Michael Quinion in World Wide Words email newsletter discusses the Plain English Campaign: Annual Awards - especially the Foot in Mouth award to Donald Rumsfeld for comments in a press briefing.
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns � the ones we don't know we don't know.'
I saw the clip of him saying it again yesterday and all I can do is agree with Michaels' words:
"In the days since, journalists and academics have queued up to assert that Donald Rumsfeld was talking sense, moreover sense expressed in the simplest and plainest words available, ones that the Plain English Campaign should be applauding, not criticising.
The trouble is, Mr Rumsfeld's statement needs work to appreciate, because he's talking philosophy. (You might argue that he left out one category, that of unknown knowns - things we know, but we don't know that we know - but this is perhaps a comment better reserved for a seminar on metacognition.) It would seem that the PEC has put its own foot in its own mouth, again."
It is a shame because the PEC has done sterling work in promoting plain English and it still needs to name and shame - for instance:
The online retailer jungle.com was asked: "Do you still sell blank CDs?". The company replied: "We are currently in the process of consolidating our product range to ensure that the products that we stock are indicative of our brand aspirations. As part of our range consolidation we have also decided to revisit our supplier list and employ a more intelligent system for stock acquisition. As a result of the above certain product lines are now unavailable through jungle.com, whilst potentially remaining available from more mainstream suppliers". So that would be a "no", then?