This just tickled my fancy.
A British nurse has been forced to take an English language test before she can work in Australia.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives Board introduced new language proficiency regulations for all migrants on 1st January. This rule even applies to the 33 year-old Birmingham born, Bristol educated Ms Julie Dutton; despite her being fluent in English, and holding a Nursing degree from an English university.
There is an undoubted need for a nurse to be able to communicate effectively with other hospital staff. But is this a case of “bureaucracy gone mad” as the NSW Opposition claim, or just a lack of commonsense?
More frustrating was the fact that the next test that Ms Dutton could sit was in June. With government intervention, a place has been found this weekend at Macquarie University’s International English Language Testing System Centre.
David Harris from the testing authority said “If it was to be decided that people should be exempted from the test, on the basis of what evidence would they make that decision?” That indeed is the question, the one that should have been determined prior to the regulation being introduced.
Interestingly, it must be noted that Australian nurses in the UK face the same profiency requirements.
Via: ABC News [^] and TimesOnline [^]
Councils Issue Banned Jargon List
It looks like the Local Government Association (LGA) is having another crack-down on the English language. This time it does look like a real attempt at improving communication, rather than the previous attempt to rout us of nasty foreign words [^].
The LGA’s banned jargon list [^] identifies what can only be described as management-speak and weasel words, phrases and terms that are used to obscure meaning. Some of the terms include “predictors of beaconicity”, “procure”, “potentialities” and “coterminous, stakeholder engagement”. And good riddance I say to them.
A Plain English Campaign spokeswoman said to the BBC:
Technical terms do have a place in the professions where they clarify meaning, or identify specific situation. But “predictors of beaconicity” and “coterminous, stakeholder engagement” are just down-right confusing. Such terminology reduces the effectiveness of the message, rather than improving it. This is sloppy use of the available tools, in this case language.
It is like saying that a student “is no longer permanently affiliated with” a school rather than expelled (Skins Series 2, Episode 5). The problem with this is that there is a significant mental shift that is required mid-sentence to interpret the phrase, rather than instant understanding. That is a lot of verbal gymnastics to go through just to remove, or obscure, one undesirable word.
As any student will tell you any form of communication should be tailored to the intended audience. No audience wants to have to rush off to the dictionary to discover that “coterminous” means equal in scope, or sharing a boundary! We are all “stakeholders” in the activities our governments, let’s hope that this is just the beginning of dialogue that establishes communication norms.