The Complete Plain Words

340 Pages·1977·54.224 MB·English

by  Sir Ernest Gowers, Sir Bruce Fraser

ERNEST GOWERS
SIR
THF
COMPLETE
PLAIN
Know,say and convey whal you mean

PELICAN BOOKS
THE COMPLETE PLAIN WORDS
Sir Ernest Gowers, who was an Hon. D.Litt. of Man-
chester University, an Hon. Fellow of Clare College,
Cambridge, an Hon. A.R.I.B.A., and a Past President
of the English Association, was born in 1880. He was
educated at Rugby School and Clare College, Cam-
bridge, where he was a scholar and took a 'First' in
Classics. Heentered the Inland Revenue Departmentin
1903, and it was as chairman of that Board that he left
thecivilservicetwenty-sevenyearslateronhisappoint-
ment as chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganization
Commission (latertheCoalCommission). Inthe mean-
timehehadservedinseveraldepartmentsandhadbeen
atone timeprincipalprivate secretaryto Lloyd George
as Chancellor of the Exchequer. During the Second
World Warhe was London Regional Commissionerfor
Civil Defence, and afterwards chairman of numerous
committees and commissions on a wide variety of
subjects, including the admission of women into the
Foreign Service, the conditions of work in shops and
offices, the preservation of historic houses, foot-and-
mouth disease, and capital punishment. Sir Ernest
Gowers died in 1966.
Sir Bruce Fraser was born in 1910 and educated at
Bedford School and TrinityCollege, Cambridge, where
he took a 'Double First1 in Classics and English. He
entered the Scottish Office in 1933 and the Treasury in
1936. He became Permanent Secretary of the Ministry
of Health in 1960-64 and from 1966 till his retirement
in 1971 hewasComptrollerandAuditorGeneral.

THE
COMPLETE PLAIN
WORDS
SIR ERNEST GOWERS
REVISED BY SIR BRUCE FRASER
•As if plain words, useful and intelli-
gible instructions, were not as good for
an esquire, or one that is in com-
mission from theKing, as for him that
holds the plough.' John Eachard,
The Grounds and Occasions of the
Contempt of the Clergy and Religion
enquiredinto, 1670.
PENGUIN BOOKS
PenguinBooksLtd,Harmondsworth,Middlesex,England
VikingPenguinInc.,40West23rdStreet,NewYork,NewYork10010,U.S.A.
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PlainWordsfirstpublished1948
TheABCofPlainWordsfirstpublished1951
FirstpublishedtogetherasTheCompletePlainWordsby
H.M.StationeryOffice,1954
PublishedinPelicanBooks1962
Reprinted1963,1964,1966,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972
SecondeditionpublishedbyH.M.StationeryOffice 1973
PublishedinPelicanBooks1973
Reprinted1974,1975,(twice).1976, 1977
Reprintedwithrevisions1977
Reprinted1978, 1979,1980,1982, 1983, 1984,1985
Crowncopyrightreserved.Reprintedbypermissionof
theControllerofH.M.StationeryOffice
Allrightsreserved
MadeandprintedinGreatBritainby
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MemberoftheBPCCGroup,
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SetinLinotypeTimes
ExceptintheUnitedStatesofAmerica,
thisbookissoldsubjecttothecondition
thatitshallnot,bywayoftradeorotherwise,
belent,re-sold,hiredout,orotherwisecirculated
withoutthepublisher'spriorconsentinanyformof
bindingorcoverotherthanthatinwhichitis
publishedandwithoutasimilarcondition
includingthisconditionbeingimposed
onthesubsequentpurchaser
CONTENTS
PREFACE
7
PROLOGUE
1. 14
Doyou know,sayandconveywhatyoumean?
Usingtherightwordsisall-important
A PRELIMINARY DIGRESSION
2. 23
The scope ofthisbookdoesnot extendto LegalEnglish, 'Expert
to Expert', DepartmentalShorthand, ortheSpokenWord
THE ELEMENTS
3.
Thinkforothersratherthanforyourself
Howtodraftaletter
Threefundamentalprecepts: Beshort, besimple, behuman
CORRECTNESS
4. 41
A fourth precept: Becorrect
Disciplinein officialwriting
Effortsto preservepureEnglish: vainresistancetonewwords
and newmeanings
Thedutyoftheofficial
Incorrectwordsand phrases
5. THE CHOICE OF WORDS: INTRODUCTORY 68
Ready and precise meaning
Causesoftheconverse examplesandremedies
:
Usefew,familiar,andprecisewords
THE CHOICE OF WORDS: AVOIDING THE
6.
SUPERFLUOUS WORD
81
Sometypesofverbosity
Padding
THE CHOICE OF WORDS: CHOOSING THE
7.
FAMILIAR WORD
104
Typesoffailure
Jargonand legallanguage
Foreign wordsand phrases
Metaphorsandothershowywords
THE CHOICE OF WORDS CHOOSING THE
8. PRECISE WORD : 132
Lureoftheabstractword
Theheadb'nephrase
Cliches and overworked words
9. THE HANDLING OF WORDS 159
Grammar, syntaxand idiom,theirnatureandimportance
Troubles withvariouspartsofspeech
Some points of idiom
Somecommoncausesofconfusedexpression
Afewpointsofspelling
PUNCTUATION
10. 238
Writesoastobeclearwithaminimumofstops,andusestopsfor
clarity
Rightandwronguseofthevariousstops, etc.: Apostrophe,
Capitals,Colon,Comma,Dash, Fullstop,Hyphen, Inverted
commas,Paragraphs,Parentheses,Questionmarks,Semicolon,
Sentences
SOME RECENT TRENDS
11. 265
Thetrend towards informality
TheinfluenceofAmerica
Theinfluenceofscienceandtechnology: nuclearenergy,space
travel,computers,economics, sociology, businessandpersonnel
management
Voguewords
Modish writing
SOME SELECTED PASSAGES
12. 288
Sixspecimenscriticallyexamined
Onesuperbandoneabysmalspecimen
A CONCLUDING MISCELLANY
13. 305
Foramusement only: The boiled baby, The roostingcow, That's
notwhatImeant!\Thebuzz-phrasegenerator
Thesatisfiedcustomer
Physician,healthyself
EPILOGUE
14. 313
It isespeciallyimportantthatofficialwritingshouldbegood
Thelanguageisnotindecay
BIBLIOGRAPHY
318
INDEX
321
PREFACE
Plain Words first appeared in 1948. The Treasury invited Sir
ErnestGowers, adistinguishedcivilservant, towriteitasacon-
tribution to what theywere doing to improveofficialEnglish. It
made an immediate impact, which was by no means limited
either to officialdom or to this country. It was followed in 1951
by TheABCofPlain Wordsandin 1954byTheCompletePlain
Words, in which Gowers brought together in one volume, with
additions and alterations, what he had written in the previous
two.
TheCompletePlain Wordshasbeenrepeatedlyreprinted,and
Gowers made a number of amendments in succeeding impres-
sions. Had he lived he would himself have produced a new
edition unhappilyhehad no timeto dosoaftercompletinghis
:
monumentalrevisionofFowler'sModernEnglish Usage(1965).
Thetaskhas instead beenentrustedtome.
Gowers' work is undoubtedly a classic. Not only is it ele-
gantly and wittily written: it affords to the readerprofitas well
as pleasure, for it concentrates on whatmatters to the ordinary
practitioner, not on what interests only grammarians and
scholars. Itiseminentlysensible.Indeedtherecanbefewwriters
on the use of English whose judgments and preferences com-
mand such ready agreement from sensible people, whether
amateurorprofessional.
Its influence in the public service has been deepand lasting. I
sought an up-to-date assessment from heads of Government
Departments, and the replies had an impressive similarity. The
work is recommended reading in most parts of the service, and
it is widely read, or at least widely referred to, by both senior
and junior staff. Its influence is felt even by those who have
never read it, for its precepts, and many of its illustrations, are
used in many booklets for staff and in many training and re-
freshercourses.
:
TheCompletePlain Words
It is no light task to reviseaclassic, and Ioweittothereader
toexplainwhatIhavedone.
In hisPrefaceto TheCompletePlain WordsGowerswrote
I am not a grammarian, and The Complete Plain Words, like its
predecessors, makes no claim to be a grammar of the English lan-
guage, though for reasons I have explained in the text I felt bound,
reluctantly and diffidently, to give one chapter(9)to some points of
grammarandone(10)topunctuation.Apartfromthesetwochapters,
this book is wholly concerned with what is described in one of the
quotations that head the first chapteras the choice and arrangement
ofwordsinsuchawayastogetanideaasexactlyaspossibleoutof
onemindinto another. Even so I must not be credited with too high
an ambition: the scope of the book is circumscribed by its being
intended primarily forthosewho usewordsastoolsoftheirtrade,in
administration orbusiness.
This general description holds good for the revised edition.
Mytaskwas notto producea newbook-thisisnot'Fraser'but
'GowersrevisedbyFraser'-and I havetried tokeepasmuchas
possible of the flavour and spirit of the original. Nevertheless
there is no doubt that revision is now necessary if Gowers is to
beasuseful in thefutureas he has been inthepast(justasthere
is no doubt that this revised edition will before very long need
revision initsturn).
First, though most of his precepts are still sound and still
need stressing, many of his illustrations were collected when
war-time rationing and controls were still with us; and their
subject-matter gives them a dated air.* I have substituted con-
temporary illustrationswherever I could, lest thepreceptsmight
lookoutofdatetoo.
Second, developments in the language and in accepted usage
since Gowers first wrote have, I think, made a few passages
War-time shortages seem to have been a particularly prolific source
of contorted language, as in Gowers' example The fatsposition will then
be relieved, meaning Fats will then be more plentiful But peace-time
shortages seem to have the same quality: a 1970 White Paper told us
that 'Last winter there was a tight situation in thesupplyofsolid smoke-
less fuels'. The five italicised words mean no more than shortage or
scarcity.
8