Plain Sartarite/English

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:01:18 -0000

> >Now what we need is something like the "plain English"
> campaign we've
> >taken for granted for years over here, so that legal documents make
> >sense in the first place.

> Unfortunately, 'plain English' in a legal sense would lead to
> even more trouble as 'plain English' is/can be ambiguous as
> to meaning and intent.

Sounds like you haven't had to deal with any recently written British legal documents. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised - I know I was. Made buying and selling houses a breeze, and it was absolutely unambiguous. Defining non-standard terms where needed helped a lot. OTOH the thing I had to sign ten years earlier made the FPP look like a model of clarity and sanity.

You know, we can drag that vaguely back to Glorantha.... (shock, horror!)

No, written documents won't be all that common. But deliberately complicated speeches and oaths? Designed so as to be impressive by their incomprehensibility? I'm sure LM types would do it. And I can see some Humakti being very, very careful about the *exact* wording of any promise they made (and others thinking they're a bunch of wimps!)