Dr Seuss – the man to make pots of funny money at the Bank

For the past 50 years the guard-dog of English prose has been George Orwell, who taught us to value precision over pretension and avoid meaningless words. The age of Orwell is now, it seems, over.

In a bold attempt to return its monetary reports to a language understood by more than one person in five, the Bank of England has turned for guidance not to the English essayist but to the American children’s author Dr Seuss. Nemat Shafik, the bank’s former deputy governor, says policy needs to be explained in “accessible language” and “short words” of the sort found in Dr Seuss.

These things are true, but Dr Seuss is nevertheless an eccentric choice for an august institution like the Bank. The language of The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas is not only, or not simply, simple: it is also utterly dotty. Dr Seuss wove morality tales out of nonsense – Green

Eggs and Ham, for example, reminds us to eat our greens (‘I do so like green eggs and ham!/ Thank you! Thank you, / Sam-i-am!) He also (and this fact is not mentioned by Ms Shafik) – wrote in rhyme, which is why the lines in his books remain etched forever on our memories.

But what if the Bank of England really did ape Dr Seuss? What on earth might its Inflation Report 2017 look like then?

Something like this, perhaps…

Now! Now! Have no fear Said the man in the bank My tricks are not bad It is me you will thank! The market being bullish It is my intent To maintain the Bank Rate At point two five per cent!

It is equally tempting to imagine how Dr Seuss might have helped in other areas afflicted by the opaque gobbledegook of corporate jargon.

Could he have helped RBS apologise to their customers during the 2009 crisis?

That Fred-the-shred That Fred-the-shred I do not like That Fred-the-shred! I would not like him in a bank I would not like him in a tank! A hunch I have, I have a hunch, I would not like the Credit Crunch!

Just imagine if the Bank of England’s inspired idea was taken up by writers of adverts, instruction manuals, annual reports and legal documents across the country?

These days even job titles, as sent up by Hugh Bonneville’s Head of Values in the BBC’S comedy W1A, have turned into gibberish. As for job adverts, this is what happens when we feed “looking for a target-driven, self-starting individual who can hit the ground running, wanting to proactively upskill their core capabilities in a fastpaced growth environment” into the Dr Seuss mash-up machine:

Do you have brains in your head And feet in your shoes? Can you steer yourself Any direction you choose?

And when Scottish Widows ask whether you “intend to align your lifestyle switching strategy to your revised retirement date?”, Dr Seuss would simply translate their blather to:

I know it is wet And the sun is not sunny But you can have lots of fun And make pots of money.