Stuffytalk

I don’t get it – do you? Every day I receive communications from banks and lawyers and governments and tech companies, and most of them paint a picture of pompous, self-important asses. Not the kind of people I want to hear from.

Yeah, this is another “Norm rant”, but I know this is an issue that annoys nearly everyone. Sure, everybody needs to feel important, and everyone needs to be in legal compliance, but surely there is room for a little humanity and pleasantry. And clarity.

And how about written policies? Posted notices? Even parking signs. Why this compulsion to sound bossy? As my friend and colleague Lewis Eisen (https://lewiseisen.com/) says so well, most policy writing sounds like parents scolding naughty children. Far too much professional and corporate communication is exactly the same.

Imagine if you took your “official talk” to the gym, or used it speaking with your neighbour across the back fence. “With respect, may I kindly draw your attention to the fact that a feline, evidently in your care and control, daily makes its way across the clearly demarcated boundary to perform its daily ablutions in my carefully manicured garden. I demand that it cease and desist, forthwith!” Your neighbour will undoubtedly comply, with pleasure, and invite you to his next barbecue.

Many point a finger at the legal department, blaming them for the bombastic obfuscation of official communication. This isn’t fair. Most stuffytalk is home-made and self-enforced. Office people talk weird because they think that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Stuffy talk has been around for hundreds of years. Remember the mandatory opening of letters? “I trust this finds you well.” And the closing? “I beg to remain your most humble and obedient servant.” Those two phrases were often the bread for a bad-news sandwich. So much for good wishes and obedient servants.

things really went off the rails with the invention of the telegraph and Morse Code STOP no way to denote punctuation must insert STOP at end of sentences STOP because paying by each letter talk stilted STOP will arrive toronto may 6 STOP kindly confirm STOP

Then came insurance companies, who are collectively responsible for about 80% of the bombast which we now think of as “business English”. Consider this: insurance is essentially a lottery in reverse. Everybody buys tickets for the insurance lottery, and when a bad thing (a “casualty”) occurs, the company pays out. In other words, when you lose, you win.

But the company can’t pay out too much and still make a profit, so they need to make sure nobody wins too much or too often. And the best way to do that is to build a linguistic thicket of verbal brambles so dense and so baffling that nobody has any clear sense of what it means, except for the vague notion that if your casualty occurs on a day that ends in “y” or the sun rises, you’re excluded.

If you doubt me, get a copy of the “long form” policy and read it. If you finish it and understand it, send me a copy so I can ask you questions, and if you can demonstrate you fully understand the policy terms, I’ll send you twenty bucks. If, conversely and simultaneously, after and subsequent to the said communicative interaction, it is demonstrated to a reasonable degree satisfactory to the interviewer in the sole and absolute discretion of the said interviewer, etc. etc. etc., then you owe me twenty bucks.

So between telegraph language and insurance language, people who worked in offices came to believe you had to talk weird. Not only bombast, but stilted bombast.

Let’s earnestly pray that Artificial Intelligence never reads too much of this stuff, and if it does, it isn’t tasked with re-writing the Income Tax Act.

The truth is that you don’t need to sound like a telegraphed insurance policy. You can, in fact, communicate in simple, clear terms and actually sound pleasant and human. And you’ll be twice as effective and ten times more popular.

To adapt two wise sayings, “You catch more flies with honey language than vinegar language”, and “Say unto others what you want others to say unto you.”

And thus endeth the lesson (or rant) of the day.