Editor's letter: Plain speech from Congress

last updated 8 January 2015

At The Week we try to keep our language clear enough that you can see the ideas behind the words. That is not always easy, which is why I’m not one of those snickering over this week’s report that members of Congress are “dumbing down” their language. According to an analysis of word choice and sentence length by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington advocacy group, the discourse in the Congressional Record has dropped an entire grade level in the past seven years. Congress used to talk at the level of high school juniors; it is now literally sophomoric. Plenty of commentators saw in that a fat target for sarcasm. We’re talking here about Congress, after all, which already reaps more disdain in polls than polygamy and the mainstream media. Democrats gleefully noted that the new crop of conservative Republicans speak at the lowest grade level. But eight of the 10 most erudite members of Congress, by this measure, are also Republicans. And until 2006, Democrats consistently trailed the Republicans in speech complexity.

There’s plenty wrong with Congress, but simple language isn’t among its problems. It is much easier to write sonorous piffle than pithy sentences with real content. Granted, you can’t intelligently discuss the ins and outs of the financial crisis without two-dollar words like “contagion.” Nor does every short sentence with a clear meaning deserve praise: Rep. Joe Wilson’s famous utterance “You lie!” comes to mind. But as George Orwell wrote, political language ought to be “an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.” We may not like what our politicians are up to. But it can’t hurt to better understand what they’re saying.