In the past few months, Education Secretary Michael Gove, a former journalist, has hit the front page with his plans to introduce new grammar and spelling tests in UK schools. Now he is back in the headlines:

“Would your mum understand it? Michael Gove bans jargon in education department“, “Gove’s golden rules for writing: can you do better?“.

These headlines announce Gove’s new venture of banning jargon from the department’s correspondence and giving advice on how to write properly by introducing 10 golden rules:

1.   If in doubt, cut it out.
2.   Read it out loud – if it sounds wrong, don’t send it.
3.   In letters, adjectives add little, adverbs even less.
4.   The more the letter reads like a political speech the less good it is as a letter.
5.   Would your mum understand that word, phrase or sentence? Would…