Blah Blah!

There are three worlds that most of those with a sense of humour try to avoid like the plague. These are the confusing, frustrating and downright annoying worlds of finance, business and insurance., alternatively known as Blah, Blah, Blah!

For most they don’t even qualify to real worlds but more like parallel universes that we cannot avoid. We find this out when we are inevitably drawn into their clutches and are totally baffled by what’s in front of us and expected to sign!

Take finance for instance, unfortunately this covers our banks, mortgages, loans, hire purchases and all those other things that we wish we could live without, but unfortunately can’t. If we are lucky enough to find the home of our dreams, the majority of us have to get a mortgage to pay for it. Simple it should be, but it’s anything but.

After you have given the infant bank clerk every personal detail, including what you’ve had for breakfast and your inside leg measurement, the loan still has to be approved. The real fun starts when the blessed phone call finally comes through, and they invite you to the mother ship, to sign the contract. They say contract, but you are actually presented with half a rain forest printed with a language you seem to understand but not entirely, because it’s a mixture of Maltese, English and Martian! Yes, those pesky aliens have written it in their own language, and unless you have had the forethought to take evening classes in ‘Martian as a foreign language’ you haven’t a clue what you are signing.

This is usually the point when our male counterparts step in. Whilst everyone’s eyes have glazed over at the sheer thought of reading, let alone understanding, the amount papers put in front of us, it is usually the women who start to ask what everything means. It is precisely here that macho guys give the alien banker that knowing look, and condescendingly turn to us with the words – “let me have a quick look over it darling, and I’ll explain it to you later”. Past experience, genital survival instincts have taught them to stop short of a pat on the head.

Now correct me if I’m wrong but why can’t a contract just say “Hi, here’s the money to buy your house. If you don’t pay us back we will reclaim your house and give you a cardboard box. Enjoy your new home”. Ahh, if only life was so simple. The same goes for loans, Hire Purchase and everything else. We would all know what we were signing and the positive affect on the environment would be amazing.

Buying insurance is no better. Have you considered a new policy recently? Have you read it? Did you understand it? I thought not. How many herein’s and herewith’s do we really need? Are they in competition with each other to see who can get the most in? Is there some form of keyword density that needs to be reached? These documents could also be greatly simplified and save another rainforest if they just read as follows: “Dear xxxxx, we are your home/life/car insurers. If you have something stolen or damaged we will give you the money to replace it. If your claim is fraudulent you will get nothing; have a nice day!” straightforward and succinct; just as it should be.

Fasten your seatbelts please; we are coming in to land on planet business, a world where females are not openly welcome, so a disguise is highly recommended! Okay, some women have succeeded in business, and after much hard work they are now somewhat accepted by their male colleagues. Most of them are graduated from the specialist college in the next galaxy but at least Business Ladies Are Happy Ladies, or BLAH. Unlike lesser mortals who are just looked at sympathetically and given the whole “there there” treatment, these women might not be treated as simpletons, but bitched about for making it in a male world.

Business is a big umbrella and covers hundreds of situations; some of these scenarios are bound to be familiar:

Wife’s car isn’t working properly, man pops head under bonnet (because he has to) and confirms her diagnosis that she needs to go to garage for a new oil filter. Wife does so, alien in overalls rolls his eyes and insists car need whole new engine, wife tells him where to stick it and drives off.

Wife sees great new mobile phone that she wants; husband says he’ll treat her (because he thinks he should). They go to store where alien in suit listens to her request, rolls his eyes and offers her a model so basic a cat could use it. Wife tells him where to stick it and walks out.

They tell us that it is all changing and some women have reached the heady heights, but they are still very much in the minority. We are basically treated like imbeciles by those who have a room with a desk and unimpressive letters after their names. If we enter these rooms alone, the aliens don’t try to disguise themselves or their race, and we get the whole Martian spiel of complicated jargon, acronyms and most likely words that they make up as they go along, but enter with a male in tow and the mask is firmly in place with some words that can actually be understood.

Sadly this has gone on for decades and is improving so slowly that it will probably be several generations down the line before we are treated as equals. So girls, what can we do to speed up the process? Well I can think of 3 things to start with: graduate from BLAH, learn to speak fluent Martian and grow male genetalia!

The Crystal Mark

In 1979 Chrissie Maher publicly shredded hundreds of official documents in Parliament Square, London. This was the start of what is today known as ‘The Plain English Campaign’ or ‘The Crystal Mark’. This campaign is entirely independent and funds itself through its commercial services, which include editing documents to make them reader friendly, and training people on how to avoid gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information.

The organisation, which is based in New Mills, Derbyshire, England, has, over the years, helped many government departments and other official organisations with their documents, reports and publications in order to ensure that everyone has access to clear and concise information.

The Crystal Mark which guarantees that a document is written in plain English is now on over 18,000 documents worldwide.

The campaigners define plain English as writing with the intended audience can read, understand and act upon the first time they read it. It takes into account not only words and language but also design and layout. The point is that plain English should be used in any information the public rely on when making decisions.