Does the United States need laws to enforce clear writing? Apparently so, because on October 13, 2010, President Barak Obama signed the Plain Writing Act of 2010, which seeks “to improve the effectiveness and accountability of Federal agencies … by promoting clear Government communication that the public can understand and use.” The Plain Writing Act […]
One hundred and fifty years have passed since Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the Civil War. May 4, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral, an event which will be commemorated by thousands of Civil War re-enactors, visitors and dignitaries participating in the 2015 Lincoln Funeral Re-enactment. The Battle of Gettysburg, the […]
Lexical gap: “A perceived gap in the lexicon or vocabulary of a language”; ideas or “relationships that are ‘lexicalised’ or represented in the vocabulary of one language may not be in another.” —A Dictionary of Sociolinguistics The Roman orator Quintilian said that when communicating “one should aim not at being possible to understand, but […]
General Dwight D. Eisenhower once asked Winston Churchill to review a draft of one of Eisenhower’s speeches. Churchill’s critique? “Too many passives and too many zeds.” When asked to explain, Churchill replied, “Too many Latinate polysyllabics like ‘systematize,’ ‘prioritize,’ and ‘finalize.’” Then, to emphasize the power of simple, straightforward verbs, Churchill lambasted the General’s use […]
The Common Reader, a publication of Washington University in St. Louis, offers the best in reviews, articles and creative non-fiction engaging the essential debates and issues of our time.
The word “stories” was used often at the annual NABIP Capitol Conference, held in the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, February 25-28, 2024. I went because I have my own stories of frustration with health care, and because I am interested when someone seems ready to try to make things better in the largely incomprehensible and vaguely menacing system we all rely on.
