plain english ASIA

Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee is  legislator and chairwoman of think tank Savantas Policy Institute. Recently, she published an article that was less than complimentary of her ex-colleagues’ writing skills.

She starts off by saying:

If your job involves the regular review of English-language government
documentation as mine does, you will agree not a single day passes without
encountering some basic grammatical errors or glaring samples of
“Chinglish” (Chinese English).

Yes, Regina, we agree. Our work requires us to sift through dozens of such documents every day. See our previous post on a letter from the Education Bureau.

This is obviously an issue that bugs Regina. In April, Regina wrote to the Chairman of the House Committee correcting the Chief  Secretary’s poor grammar.

However, we’d say that Regina’s getting a little lost in the detail. The Chinglish and basic grammatical errors are not our main concern. We’re more worried by the government’s persistent use of unnecessary ‘officialese’.  It’s time to get rid of the old-fashioned, complex and turgid style that most civil servants insist on still using.

Regina wonders:
Has this government run out of people who can write simple, correct,  functional English?

We’re not sure they ever could, to be honest. But, ’simple’ is the key word here. And, would you believe it, they do promote a plain English style of writing internally. 

Trouble is, they won’t come out and publicly say so.  And, until they do, the implementation of a plain English writing style is haphazard and left to the whims of individuals.

Why won’t our HKSAR government centralise and formalise a plain English language policy? Governments in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico and the EU, among others, have already done so.

Until our government follows suit, we – the public – will have to suffer. And, we – Plain English Asia – will be hand picking the ugliest of the ugly and posting them here with comments and rewrites for your reading pleasure!