Officialese, bureaucratese,[1][2] or governmentese is language that sounds official.[3] It is the "language of officialdom".[4] Officialese is characterized by a preference for wordy, long sentences; complex words, code words, or buzzwords over simple, traditional ones; vagueness over directness; and passive over active voice[3][5] (some of those elements may, however, vary between different times and languages[6]). The history of officialese can be traced to the history of officialdom, as far back as the eldest human civilizations and their surviving official writings.[7]
Officialese is meant to impress the listener (or reader) and increase the authority (more than the social status) of the user, making them appear more professional.[3][4] Ernest Gowers noted that officialese also allows the user to remain vague.[3] It can be used to make oneself understood to insiders while being hard to decipher by those unfamiliar with the jargon and subtexts used.[8] Its use is known to put off members of the general public and reduce their interest in the material presented.[9] Officialese has been criticized as making one's speech or prose "stilted, convoluted, and sometimes even indecipherable";[3] or simply as the "cancer of language".[2] It is thus more pejoratively classified as one of the types of gobbledygook.[1][10] Its use can also result in unintended humorous incidents, and has been often satirized.[3]
Several similar concepts to officialese exist, including genteelism, commercialese, academese, and journalese.[3] The existence of officialese has been recognized by a number of organizations, which have made attempts to curtail its use in favour of plain language.[10][7][11]
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^Bryan A. Garner (28 July 2009). "Formal Words". Garner's Modern American Usage (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 370–71. ISBN 978-0-19-987462-0. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
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