Some refreshing (and simple) alternatives to wordy language

Melissa Wardell | October 12, 2015

Plain language is all about clarity and precision. It’s about communication that your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it.

The main goals of plain language are to make sure an audience can:

• find what they need
• understand what they find
• use what they find to meet their needs.

So it makes sense that you should avoid bureaucratic and unnecessarily wordy language.

Keeping it simple

Here’s a short list of common business jargon along with plain language alternatives, to help you create easy-to-understand written material.

Instead of:	Use:
accompanied by	with
a number of	several
as a consequence of	because of
by means of	by
commence	start, begin
discontinue, terminate	end, stop
for the purpose of	for
in accordance with	by, under
in connection with	with, about, concerning
in respect of	about

Check out our free jargon busters

 

(Last updated: November 2024)