Summer Reading, Government Style

Julian Sanchez | August 10, 2006

Via Wonkette comes an amusing Flickr set of publications produced by government agencies. As a bonus, many of them are actually linked from their cover pages, so you can thrill to the bike-safety adventures of Sprocket Man, get Customs' guidance on distinguishing bolts from screws, or read the heartwarming "story of human conservation" that was the Japanese internment. I'm not sure whether to be heartened or horrified to discover that one of these documents (not available in full online), Gobbledygook Has Gotta Go, appears to be the ur-text of a full fledged "Plain Language" movement within the federal government, whose goal is to persuade federal employees to actualy use their native language when attempting to communicate with the general public.

Comments

|8.10.06 @ 1:21PM|#

"Know Your 8-Inch Howitzer"

That's what yo mama said to me last night, fool!

|8.10.06 @ 2:08PM|#

Sprocket Man? Isn't that Dieter?

Paul|8.10.06 @ 4:08PM|#

Julian, am I misunderstanding something:

"Plain Language" movement within the federal government, whose goal is to persuade federal employees to actualy use their native language when attempting to communicate with the general public.

This isn't about 'native language', it's about removing convolutions from communication so a wider audience can understand. To wit:

It's robust and direct-the opposite of gaudy, pretentious language. You achieve plain English when you use the simplest, most straightforward way of expressing an idea.

I have no opinion on the effectiveness of this movement, but when I read your comment, I get something very different. Methinks I'm a candidate for Plan Language?

|8.10.06 @ 4:10PM|#

"Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation: Are We Doing Enough?"

The answer is clearly no. Our government could always do more in this important area. I still see old people walking around completely non-abused and it pisses me off.

I'm amazed at how many of these are relatively new, yet have a very cool retro look. All their designers must hail from the Eisenhower administration.

|8.10.06 @ 5:14PM|#

Who Are the Zombie Masters and What Do They Want?

I've asked myself this question many times while cleaning the zombie flesh out of my chainsaw, but I've never come up with a satisfactory answer. Now that the Canadian government has spent millions to answer it, I can rest easy. Though I worry that Canada may already be under the sway of the Zombie Masters. Who were, of course, behind 9/11. Everybody knows that!

|8.10.06 @ 5:25PM|#

Oh, this is too rich. I searched for the Zombie Masters title above on the web and found something completely unrelated to zombies. Uh, huh.

Here's how I figure it. Canada had the balls to look into the whole Zombie Master Menace, but the Zombie Masters have struck back by replacing the valuable research with some total useless study of health care user charges. Yeah, right. The Canadians are going to waste time and money on that while fending off zombies. Not only zombies, but Zombie Masters!

|8.10.06 @ 6:39PM|#

Well doesn't this picture just warm your fucking heart.

http://www.internmentarchives.com/showdoc.php?docid=00187&search_id=9036&pagenum=7