MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IN the nineteenth century Cabinet Ministers and their staffs had time -to write the Queen's English. The more arrogant depart- ments, such as the Treasury and the Foreign Office, took pride in the composition and euphony of their drafts. Those were the days before typewriters and stenographers, when young men of birth and education were valued for the legibility of their handwriting. The foundations of many an eminent career were in those days based upon the possession on the part of a junior clerk of a script so firm and round that it could be read with rapidity and ease at Balmoral or at Windsor. The paper upon which these despatches and reports were written or copied was of superb quality ; on very grand occasions its edges were of gilt ; and the young men employed in Government offices took pleasure in composing for the royal eye une belle page. The Cabinet Ministers in those days, being themselves men of culture and often of learning, would observe and criticise the hand- writing, and on occasions even the style, of the documents submitted for their signature. To this day, when despatches or memoranda are drafted by the more elderly officials of the Treasury or the Foreign Office, they are written in a prose which combines the sturdy outrightness of a Saxon heritage with the adornments deriving from a prolonged acquaintance with the humanities. Since those spacious days, the working hours, perhaps even the capacities, of the civil servants have become cramped. A Government official today is obliged to dictate some fifty letters during a morning, to write some hundred minutes upon the documents in his tray, and to spend long hours in conference with his opposite numbers in other departments. It is not surprising that under such pressure the style of official com- munications should have become slightly mechanised. Gone are the days when a Secretary of State could write a despatch to a mission abroad in pantomime verse.
* * * * The Treasury, which broods like an angry old hen over the little ducks and cygnets of the other departments, has come to the con- clusion that this increasing illiteracy must stop. Its dignity has been affronted by the constant gibes directed against officialese by purists as irrepressible as Sir Alan Herbert or as persistent as Mr. Eric Partridge. Being both resourceful and omnipotent the Treasury has now turned on Sir Ernest Gowers (who is both a humanist and a veteran civil servant) to prepare a Guide to the Use of English for the enlightenment of public officials. It is called Plain Words and is published by His Majesty's Stationery Office for the sum of two shillings net. There are moments when Sir Ernest (perhaps by way of illustration) commits the very errors which he is out to attack. I was delighted to observe that in his very second line he tumbles into the Ciceronian trap and can write a phrase such as " to some this may seem a work of supererogation." I was amused to notice that he, in spite of his first class in classics, allows himself to imagine that it is possible and even right to define rules of punctuation. I was relieved to find him skidding into the vernacular and employing the music-hall words "caused many a headache." And I was entranced to discover this purist committing a sentence as involved and as official as the following :—" But there is so much confused thinking on this subject, even among people who ought to know better, that it will be as well, before coming to the topics with which I propose to deal, to explain why this is not one of them." Such Homeric nods add to the humanities a touch of the human. And on the whole, Sir Ernest is just, conciliatory, sensible and correct.
* * * * Why is it that civil servants, when communicating with the public or each other, adopt language such as they would never dream of using in their private correspondence? Sir Ernest Gowers, in agree- ment with Mr. George Orwell, states that one of the reasons is "laziness." That is a most unkind word to use for "pressure of time." We all know that it takes less time to reply to a formal dinner invitation than to compose a collins. In the first case you have a prescribed formula of words ; in the second you have to invent phrases specially adapted to the circumstances. Thus the junior civil servant, faced with the necessity of having to dictate some fifty letters in a morning, is inevitably, and not at all disgracefully, tempted to employ for his purpose token phrases which have become standardised through long experience and use. Nor is this the only reason. He is obliged, as Sir Ernest admits, to maintain the dignity of his office ; he is obliged to be conciliatory and to convey refusals and rebuffs in courteous form ; and he is obliged, owing to the instinct of self-preservation, to adopt not infrequently the Pythian mode. Let us suppose, for instance, that some impulsive but well- meaning organisation writes to the Foreign Secretary suggesting that an excellent device for solving the Greek situation would be to send one hundred carefully selected Girl Guides from England to Northern Epirus. The junior official who has to draft the answer receives from his departmental chief a short minute saying, " They must be mad." What is the junior official to do? He cannot reply, " I am in- structed by the Secretary of State to say that he considers your pro- posal insane " ; that would be true but rude. Is he to write a long chatty letter couched in terms of human friendliness, in which he explains exactly why the presence of one hundred Girl Guides at Argyrocastro would do more harm than good ? That would be dan- gerous and take much time. Thus, inevitably, as he ploughs through his congested tray and comes to that minute, he dictates the words, " The Secretary of State, having given careful consideration to your proposal, regrets that he is unable to conceal his opinion that such a procedure would serve no useful purpose."
* * It is in truth easy to be jocular about official language, and I do not deny that many of the communications we receive are both in- comprehensible and pompous. It is only human that junior officials should on occasion seek to enhance their own self-importance by the grandeur of the words they use, or to conceal their inability to give a simple answer by taking refuge in arabesques. But it is not fair to contrast the comparatively simple language employed by Ministers and Ambassadors in their despatches with the intricate verbiage which junior officials employ when striving to explain regulations. The difficulty arises, as Sir Ernest Gowers points out, owing to the fact that it is almost impossible to translate the language of law (which is obscure in order that it may be unambiguous) into terms which are simple and yet free from ambiguity. I once spent two days in an attempt to render into language which could be understood by a widow in Chester the regulations governing an application for a passport. My draft was written in companionable words and under such soothing headings as " What do I do first? " " What is the next thing I have to do ? " and so on. When on the following Tues- day I presented my draft to the officials at the Passport Office they read it through with friendly contempt. " But supposing," they said, " that your widow in sleepy Chester was born in an Argentine ship when her mother was on the way from Bahia Blanca to Porto Allegre? " I had no answer to this question.
* * * Sir Ernest Gowers has also been a public official. He knows that the British civil servant possesses great virtue, selfless industry and not infrequently intelligence of a high order. He also knows that those who work in Government departments have many letters to dictate and little time. The advice which he gives in his Guide Book is for this reason neither jocular nor patronising. It is sound advice. Think of what you want to say before you start dictating, put yourself in the other person's place, avoid all elegant variations, do not mind splitting your infinitives, never use grand words, and remember that as a civil servant you need not worry overmuch about the euphony or rhythm of your prose. For the instruction of Cabinet Ministers, Ambassadors and senior officials I should add another item of advice. If you wish to acquire the art of putting the right words in the right order, study the best French models. A despatch from a man like Francois Poncet makes our own despatches look like scrambled eggs.
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