UK NEWS

POLICE IN LINE FOR AWARD WITH A SENTENCE OF PURE GIBBERISH

POLICE: Talking gibberish

Friday July 3,2009

By John Chapman

POLICE chiefs are set to win an award – for the most ridiculous use of the English language.

The prize will be for a 102-word sentence from the Association of Chief Police Officers described as “ploddledygook” by the Plain English Campaign, and said to defy understanding.

Used in a paper dealing with aspects of policing, the sentence was revealed yesterday in Police Review.

In part it says: “The promise of reform which the Green Paper heralds holds much for the public and Service alike; local policing, customised to local need with authentic answerability, strengthened accountabilities at force level through reforms to police authorities and HMIC, performance management ... so as to better equip our service to meet the amorphous challenges of managing cross force harms, risks and opportunities.”

The Plain English Campaign said senior officers are talking “peculiar police gobbledygook” and urged them to go back to basics.

Marie Claire, spokeswoman for the Plain English campaign, said: “It is 102 words long. I fell asleep halfway through.”

She said the sentence had been entered in the end-of-year Golden Bull competition and stood a good chance of winning.

She added: “This sort of business gobbledygook is pretty much inexcusable.”

The paper was signed off by then ACPO president Sir Ken Jones.

An ACPO spokesman said the language reflected “how civil servants speak”.

“This may be one occasion when an appropriate response is ‘fair cop guv’.

“But it is also fair to say that ACPO’s submission was primarily intended to influence the civil servants drafting the green paper, so adopting a language familiar to them may have been thought to hold some advantage.”

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