A tool for linguistically joined-up government

BUREAUCRATS the world over are famous for their ability to describe the most mundane matters in such convoluted terms that only other civil servants understand what they are saying. Canadian bureaucrats require an additional skill: almost half the jobs in the 200,000-strong federal civil service demand someone who can obfuscate in two languages at once. The Canadian government spends at least C$30m ($30m) a year on training civil servants to use both official languages, English and French, yet such is the subtlety of bureaucratese that graduates can still find themselves reaching for the mot juste.

Enter Dick de Jong, a retired civil servant, who has just published “The Bilingual Vocabulary for Governance, Public Policy and Administration”. Its door-stopping 591 pages walk civil servants through almost every subject they might have to deal with on the job, starting with democracy and ending with space exploration. Phrases that currently trip off the governmental tongue, such as “a time of financial constraint” (une période de restrictions financières) appear, as do ones that ministers who had to answer for the Canadian army’s treatment of Afghans might like to forget, like “missing detainees” (les détenus disparus). There are helpful euphemisms. Recession? No, just une correction passagère. Mr de Jong says that, although he is a fan of plain language, he had to deal with terms bureaucrats normally use.

Authors need only sell 5,000 copies to have a bestseller in Canada. Mr de Jong is not there yet. But his target audience, civil servants at the federal, provincial and municipal levels plus students of public administration at Canadian universities, is large enough to propel him up the rankings. Sales were brisk at an Ottawa bookshop. “It’s not ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’,” said Trish Slater, a saleswoman. “But it’s selling very well.” No word yet on whether there will be a movie.