Plain English (sometimes referred to more broadly as plain language) is a generic term for communication in English that emphasizes clarity, brevity, and the avoidance of technical language—particularly in relation to official government or business communication.
The goal is to write in a way that is easily understood by the target audience: clear and straightforward, appropriate to their reading skills and knowledge, free of wordiness, cliché and needless jargon. It often involves using native Germanic words instead of those derived from Latin and Greek (see linguistic purism in English).
Famous quotes containing the words plain english, plain and/or english:
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am so far from thinking the maxims of Confucius and Jesus Christ to differ, that I think the plain and simple maxims of the former, will help to illustrate the more obscure ones of the latter, accommodated to the then way of speaking.”
—Matthew Tindal (1653–1733)
“The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)