In his plea this week for companies to communicate in plainer language, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox deftly debunked any incoming criticism of his own convoluted constructions.
Noting that the SEC was "taking plain English to the next level," he bemoaned muddled proxy statements, explaining that the Flesch Reading Ease score for descriptions of executive pay on an index of readability ranging from 0 to 100 was a flunking 34.86. A score that low is incomprehensible for two-thirds of Americans. Aware that even he is guilty of government-speak, Cox acknowledged that the text of his own testimony did not fare much better, scoring a lackluster 49.
"These are laws, regulations, government documents, and investor communications we’re talking about. It's not supposed to be Hemingway," Cox said. "If we lose the capacity for poetry in the process of keeping things clear and understandable, that's a price we should happily pay."
The SEC has published a "Plain English Handbook" and is translating some of its key provisions into simpler prose. And despite his 3,147 word treatise on the subject, Cox still knows how to turn a terse phrase. "We're dead serious about plain English," he said. |
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