Plain English in Consumer-Credit Contracts: An Examination of Approaches
Loading...
Authors
Ashton, Steven O.
Issue Date
1984
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Plain English is a movement to simplify legal
documents that is causing a great deal of controversy in
the legal profession, for it is an attempt to purge
lawyers of the "sins" of legal writing. Excessive words
and phrases of legal jargon clutter the language to the
point where lawyers themselves are occasionally unable to
interpret each others' writing. Legalese is a disease;
Plain English is the prescribed cure. Federal and state
legislatures are responding to the problem by drafting
Plain English laws requiring consumer contracts to be
written in a "simple, straightforward language with
common, everyday meaning." In 1980, President Carter
issued an executive order declaring that government
regulations must be "written in plain English and [be]
understandable to those who must comply with it."
Similarly, large corporations are writing consumer
contracts -- bank loans, insurance policies, and common
transactional agreements -- in Plain English. For the
purpose of this paper, we will concentrate on various
approaches to solving the Plain English dilemma.
Description
ix, 66 p.
Citation
Publisher
License
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder. All rights reserved.