May you never have to sit on your judgement
Ahigh court judge in an Indian state sent his judgement on a rental dispute to the Supreme Court and nobody could understand what he had written.
The Supreme Court bench was baffled reading it and sent it back to the judge to redraft it in plain English.
The judgement was in favour of the tenant who had been locked in battle with her landlord for many years. The lawyer representing the tenant joked in court that she may have to hire an English professor to understand the ruling.
This is part of the judgement the learned judge from the high court in the state of Himachal Pradesh had written: “However, the [learned] counsel... cannot derive the fullest succour from the aforesaid acquiescence... given its sinew suffering partial dissipation from an imminent display occurring in the impugned pronouncement hereat wherewithin unravelments are held qua the rendition recorded by the [learned] Rent Controller ...”
It is drilled into journos’ (short for journalists) heads to ‘write as you speak’ and to never use big words that you cannot understand. The reader is a busy person, we are told, and does not have time for your verbosity (a big word for wordiness, jabbering, blabbing).
I, however, could never write as I spoke, because most of the time when I speak I mumble, repeat my words, hum and haw and giggle. To be a good communicator it is essential to write in a simple language, and get your message across clearly, especially today in the age of instant news and instant gratification, when the attention span of people is low, and they lose interest fast when the website takes a bit longer to load.
Imagine if on the other hand, the honourable judge went home and spoke as he wrote; his wife would never understand that he wanted a soothing cup of tea.
Meanwhile, across the border in Pakistan, a BBC report noted that the Pakistan Supreme Court ruled there was no evidence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif having disproportionate assets (unlike Sasikala, friend of Jayalalitha, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu state in India), and there was no need to oust him on any corruption charges.
Instead of saying it like it is, the judgement began by mentioning the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo. If you remember, the book and subsequently a classic movie of the same name, is about a mafia family in America.
The judgement also quoted in French, Honore de Balzac, a novelist and playwright who wrote a series of short stories and novels collectively titled the Human Comedy. The prime minister’s supporters did not mind the wordy judgement as most probably many did not know what the heck the judges were talking about.
Indians and Pakistanis believe they are good at speaking and writing English because of their colonial past and that they have an advantage in the job market, compared to people from say, Eastern Europe. They are miffed when they see job adverts in the Arab Gulf region that ask for “native English language speakers”, which they think are discriminatory.
I have noticed that Indians themselves are biased and quietly ask the school administrator if their child can be placed in another class, when they find the teacher is an Indian, with the lilting accent.
English today has become an international language and is the language of commerce, diplomacy and unfortunately also of banking, medicine, science and business and each of these sectors feel free to murder the language.
The UK-based Plain English Campaign has been fighting against jargon and misleading public information and believes that everyone should have access to clear and concise information.
Check it out if you wish to write easy-to-read content for your website, or cut out the gobbledegook and jargon in your field of expertise.
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ mahmood_saberi.