Years ago I read an article about the Plain English (or more generally "Plain Language") movement. This is the idea that writing in a concise manner provides the most value. For example a business that sends correspondences will receive more responses if they use Plain English. If it is too painful to read, people will just throw it away.
I am tempted to write more, but that would be in violation of the inspiration for this post.
You can read more about it on wikipedia.
There are some interesting examples at plainlanguage.gov (Oxymoronic?)
2 comments:
plainenglish.gov is an oxymoron because it is a whole website dedicated to a concept that can be explained in three sentences? Or is it because .gov is proceeded by plain english?
plainenglish.gov is an oxymoron because the government has a reputation for not using plain English.
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