Wednesday 24 March 2004

Value-added

I'm not entirely sure about the Plain English Campaign. Their mission as "an independent pressure group fighting for public information to be written in plain English" is entirely admirable, but there's a nagging suspicion that they're made-up of the sort of fuddy-duddy language pedants that you'd stop drinking in certain pubs to avoid.

Anyway, they've published a list of irritating and over-used phrases that should be avoided by careful speakers. People really don't like other people saying "at the end of the day", "at this moment in time", "like" and "With all due respect". I can't really argue with any of the other choices, either.

The Guardian uses this as an excuse for a little space filling by cutting and pasting the phrases into a speech by Churchill. It starts off fun but ends up being teeth-grindingly annoying. Perhaps that was the point...

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