'It (Plain English Campaign) is the best thing to have come our way from England since parliamentary democracy and leavened bread'

Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri, Jadavpur University

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Plain English (sometimes known, more broadly, as plain language) is a communication style that focuses on considering the audience's needs when writing. It recommends avoiding unnecessary words and avoiding jargon, technical terms, and long and ambiguous sentences. Language should be plain whether we're preparing a legal brief, writing a procedure, designing a brochure, running a business, publishing a newsletter, managing a department, maintaining a Web site, or training workers. It was Cornell University professor William Strunk, Jr. who first advocated the use of Plain English in his book The Elements of Style. This "little book" is a forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English. The book was originally written in 1918 and was later revised with the help of Edward A Tenney in 1935. Later in 1979, the campaign for Plain English received a big boost when protesters in the UK shredded unclear government forms outside the British Parliament Houses. The Plan English campaign, launched in 1979 by Chrissie Maher OBE, fights for public information to be written so that its intended audience can read, understand and act upon it straight away. The Plain English movement has helped many government departments and other official organisations in the UK with their documents, reports and publications. To help the cause of Plain English a series of guides, glossaries, and Drivel Defence software are provided free at http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/guides.htm.

The General guides, provided in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, include How to write in plain English, The A-Z of alternative words. The Glossaries include A to Z of financial terms, A to Z of legal phrases, and A to Z of pension terms. And Special subjects include  Design and layout, Forms, Letters, Medical information, Proofreading, Reports, Websites and Wills. 'Drivel Defence' is an application developed by John Rugg in collaboration with the Plain English Campaign. This software uses an alternative words' guide to inspect web pages and other documents. It also checks accessibility and readability issues.

The Plain Language movement has had many landmark achievements. In 1978, US President Carter signed an executive order requiring regulations to be written in plain English. In 1998, President Clinton issued a memorandum directing the heads of executive departments to use plain language in all new documents.  In 1998, the Securities and Exchange Commission, UK, instructed corporations to write key parts of stock and bond prospectuses – particularly the cover page, summary, and risk factors - in plain language.  The European Commission Council Directive 93/13 requires unfair terms to be removed, and in the case of contracts where all or certain terms offered to the consumer are in writing, these terms must always be drafted in plain, intelligible language. Where there is doubt about the meaning of a term, the interpretation most favourable to the consumer shall prevail.

In Sweden, no government bill, including proposed acts of Parliament, can go to the printers without the approval of the 'division for legal and linguistic draft revision' of the Ministry of Justice. Plain language is a reality in these countries. However, in India, legalese and officialese is revered and preserved bemoans Mr Jyoti Sanyal, the author of Write it Right: The Statesman Style Book. The 577-page stylebook is an authoritative work on how to rid Indian English of the commercialese, officialese, legalese, jargon, and circumlocution that it reeks of. Mr Sanyal also spearheads the Plain English movement in India, and towards this cause founded Clear English India
(http://www.clearenglish.in/) in 2005.  Clear English India seeks to promote the living language that modern English is, and believes that that it is possible and necessary to write in plain language at all times. Clear English India demands that the government must draft all laws in plain language, be it in English or any regional language, because the citizen has a right to easily understand what the law says.

N S Soundar Rajan