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Dictionary definition: Plain English
- Article from:
- Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage
- Author:
Copyright© Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage 2004, originally published by Oxford University Press 2004. (Hide copyright information)
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Plain English.
1.
The expression
plain English
, meaning ‘English that is clear and easy to understand’, goes back to the 15c, and was the term often used in the titles of the first dictionaries that appeared during the 17c; Robert Cawdrey, for example, described the contents of his 1604
Table Alphabeticall
as listing hard words ‘with the interpretation thereof by plaine English words’. The current UK Plain English campaign was started in the 1970s and grew out of the consumer movement and the demand for fair dealing. It may be seen as belonging to the tradition of the work done by Sir Ernest Gowers in publications such as
Plain Words
(1948, later
The ...