http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/10/pruden-banish-the-gobbledygook-pdq/
“The president is using the government to harass people, and it’s not just the National Park Service rangers who have been instructed to make life as miserable as they can for as many people as they can. As though to rub salt in the wounds of the veterans who were evicted from the World War II Memorial on the Mall, the White House approved an invitation to immigration amnesty groups to hold an amnesty rally near the very place the Park Service blocked the veterans, many in their 90s, who had come from thousands of miles away. The government’s message was plain and clear: thousands of illegal aliens are welcome, but the veterans, all of them American citizens, are not. Imaginative abuse is what the Republicans should be talking about, abuse and insult as a consequence of Mr. Obama’s shutdown — only somewhat of a shutdown, actually — and they should be talking about it in plain, blunt terms. No more talk of CRs, of OMB projections and the statistics beloved by the wonks and geeks.”
Politics occasionally drive John Boehner to tears, but rarely to plain English. Gobbledygook is the Washington disease, and the Republicans have a bad case of it. Wonkery was not invented in Washington, but Washington is where it thrives.
Corporate-speak is closely related to government gobbledygook, and those most fluent in the tongue have been carefully trained and tutored in using words not to amplify meanings, but to hide them. One way to do this is to use five words when one or two will do. Perfumed words are preferred. Initials and acronyms are best of all.
The Democrats are rarely wordsmiths, but they understand that plain people — i.e., most of us — understand plain words. Short words are good, Winston Churchill observed, and familiar words are better. Short, familiar words are best of all. Ronald Reagan knew this, which is why he was called the great communicator. Many Republicans, having inherited corporate genes, have never learned it.
