Current:
The Gondola Scam, by Jonathan Gash (a bit more than half way through)
Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (a bit more than half way through)
Rags, by Mick Lewis (half way through)
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, ed. Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (a third of the way through)
Last books finished
Aldébaran, tome 4: Le Groupe, by Leo
Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone
Next books
The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century, by Brendan Bradshaw (Tudor Ireland)
The Complete Stories of Zora Neale Hurston (birthday present)
Locke & Key: Clockworks, Vol. 5, by Joe Hill (Hugo nominee)
Head Games, by Steve Lyons (New Adventure)
Books acquired in last week:
Empire of the Sun, by J.G. Ballard
Street Lethal, by Steven Barnes
LT Unread books tally: 458
I continue to be surprised at the way the purpose of my work is repeatedly misunderstood (as being “finger-wagging”, puristic, anti-French(!) or whatever) – to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether we are dealing with the same document.
The clearly stated language policy espoused by ‘my institution’ (the Court of Auditors) is as follows: ‘reports should be drafted for the attention of an interested but non-expert reader who is not necessarily familiar with the detailed EU or audit context’. This has to be my benchmark. Incidentally, I also happen to agree with it. Why bother if we are just writing for ourselves? Our function is to audit the Commission and report back to the European taypayer on our findings. If we use a form of English that the UK/Irish taxpayers do not understand, it is difficult to see what we are providing for the money that they spend on us. Above and beyond this, the fact that the Commission has kindly agreed to host my work on their website may be held as evidence for the fact that this problem is also widely felt outside the Court of Auditors itself.
My starting point is that much of the EU’s written output is excessively difficult or even incomprehensible for our target readership. The following is a typical and, quite frankly, not excessively difficult example of EU prose:
“The strategy foresees in 2013-2014 the definition with stakeholders of technology roadmaps focusing on the deployment of technologies and innovation in ten critical areas of transport including clean, efficient, safe, quiet and smart road vehicles”.
My research shows that our target readership finds this sentence both off-putting and difficult or even impossible to understand and this reaction clearly shows that we are not achieving our objective, which is to be read and understood. It has nothing to do with nitpicking or excessive purism.
Clearly, as will be evident from the above example, it is not just a question of vocabulary, I could list seven or eight other areas of language that need to be addressed in the same way. However, you have to start somewhere, and this seemed to be a reasonable place to kick off.
jeremy.gardner@eca.europa.eu