Where does jargon come from? After all, no one is taught to express themselves like this in school – so where does the rot set in? “I think a lot of it comes from people writing to impress rather than to inform,” says Tony Maher, general manager of the Plain English Society. “They don’t stop to consider who might be reading this stuff. They just think their bosses will be impressed by as many long words as they can put in – and of course it makes no sense at all. The worst offenders as far as we are concerned are legalese and planning documents. At the moment I’ve got one Planning Notice on my desk which consists of 600 words and no punctuation at all.”