How about a new normal for bureaucratic language?

By Jose B. Maroma, Jr.

 

All of us have read in bulletin boards of government offices announcements which start with PLEASE BE INFORMED and close with FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE.

These ubiquitous phrases, which have become part of our cultural subconscious, date back to our Commonwealth days when we were pounding round keys on Underwood typewriters. The canned expressions may be proper but, over time, they wither with indiscriminate use. It may be fun in this pandemic monotony to spruce up the humdrum bureaucracy with fresh language.

The phrase PLEASE BE INFORMED is a template opening statement conveniently used by secretaries or their bosses by force of habit. Initially, its use could have been prompted by courtesy or deference to a higher authority, appropriate for formal or diplomatic communications but not necessary for ordinary notices.

The concluding sentence FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND GUIDANCE is another template to close a memo, as if it’s an incomplete meal without this packaged dessert. Try skipping this sentence, the memo will survive.

I’m not raising an issue of these impressions, which may be considered matters of personal preference or taste. I’m just tickling the brains of secretaries who would probably welcome a refreshing departure from structured drudgery.

Here’s another phrase still in vogue, AS FAR AS  x – – — – – – – – – – – – x IS/ARE CONCERNED.

Sometimes the consequent phrase is too far removed from the antecedent that coherence is impaired and errors are committed in number and tense.

 

‘NO PARKING BOTH SIDES’

Jean Edades once suggested the more precise “No Parking On Either Side’. No big deal here. Traffic signs have to be brief. They have a language of their own.

 

‘OUT OF ORDER’

I’m happy to observe I seldom see this sign now There was a time I would see it crudely scrawled on cardboard, slung over on a defective urinal, and stayed there for days while the poor maintenance guy goes through the paperwork of buying a simple valve. The simple sign had become a symbol of inefficiency.

I can recall these expressions in bureaucracy because I had worked with government for some time, shepherding documents from table to table. My pet peeve then was the practice of one department tossing documents to another with clarificatory endorsements preceded by “respectfully referred to” or “respectfully forwarded to”. And all it needed was one department head lifting the phone and talking to another.

Happily, times are changing and, hopefully, our business language will follow.