David Walter

Poor communication, it has been calculated, costs the British economy around eight billion pounds a year. People these days need a very wide range of skills. Almost everyone in every walk of life needs to be IT literate. As technology advances, we all need greater knowledge about how to make it work. We possess increasingly sophisticated mobile phones, I-pods, laptops and remotes all of which require mastering. All of this is too often at the expense of our grasp of the English language, the most effective communication tool anyone can possess.

This is not a point made out of pedantry. The consequences of poor English are practical. Messages appear ambiguous. A point takes twice or three times as long to make as it should. The reader is bombarded with jargon which the writers have used only because they do not really understand what it means themselves.

Suppose the framers of the American constitution has written this:

“There are a number of principles which need to be borne in mind in creating the framework document which this committee has been asked to draw up and which we believe are unlikely to be subject to contradiction. We argue that a basis of fundamental equality should be the starting point for this organisation and that members should be presumed to be entitled to certain basic rights, chiefly among them being protection for their safety, freedom of movement, speech and association, and facilities which will enable them to relax and enjoy themselves.”

The impact would have been far weaker than that of the words which they actually used:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The philosopher Blaise Pascal once wrote to a friend that he had made his letter longer because he did not have time to make it shorter. It does take time to find the pithiest, punchiest and most direct way of saying something. It is almost always worth sparing that time.

The skill of using the English language to maximum effect lies at the heart of what we do at First Take, whether it is media, presentation or crisis training or speechwriting.