Tag: Plain language oral history

The plain language movement in Canada, 1980–1995: An oral history

Four-frame cartoon: Frame 1: Bespectacled editor says to curly-haired editor, “Heh. You ever procrastinate on something for nine years, and then when you finally get to it, it takes just a few months?” Frame 2: Curly-haired editor says, “I’m sorry… Did you say NINE YEARS?” Frame 3: Bespectacled editor stares straight ahead in silence. Frame 4: Bespectacled editor looks down in shame.
Creative Commons License
In 2017, in the middle of my PhD program, I embarked on a little side project to interview leaders of the plain language movement in Canada who were active between 1980 and 1995. I chose that window because it’s within what my former publishing prof John Maxwell called the internet’s historical rain shadow: not old enough to be considered interesting and thus worthy of being documented online but not new enough that it would automatically exist online. Without a concerted effort to fill that gap in our history, information about those events could be lost forever. Continue reading “The plain language movement in Canada, 1980–1995: An oral history”