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 and/or english:
“Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman. The right sort of woman can distinguish between Creative Lassitude and plain shiftlessness.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)
“My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.”
—Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)