RICHARD GERE, the well known Hollywood actor, received a rather unusual award on December 5, 2002. It was the Foot in Mouth Award for the most baffling quote of the year. Gere said, "I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake. I'd think 'No. actually I am a giraffe'."
The award is presented annually by the Plain English Campaign, an independent organisation in English that fights for crystal-clear language. It was founded by Chrissie Maher who took up the battle in 1979 after seeing the two old ladies die because they couldn't understand an application form for housing benefits. The organisation defines Plain English as something that the people it is meant for can read, understand and act upon the first time they read it.
It believes that plain English is needed in all kinds of public information, such as forms, leaflets, agreements and contracts.
It gives the Foot in Mouth award and another called the Golden Bull to draw attention to the need for using language that is simple and easy to understand. Richard Gere is not only Hollywood personality to get the award.
Earlier, the actress Alicia Silverstone got one too for her comments quoted in the Sunday Telegraph. Alicia is reported to have said: "I think that (the film) Clueless was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness."
The American's have word for this sort of pompous and unintelligible language. They call it 'gobbledygook' , a word derived from gobbling sound that a turkey makes.
0 Comments