As an enemy of officialese, I\u2019m a friend of light language\u2014a term Pirjo Hiidenmaa<\/i> introduced in her book, Finnish language \u2013 Who Cares?<\/i> I first began to believe it was actually possible to improve official language when I read Salli Kankaanp\u00e4\u00e4<\/i>\u2019s dissertation on the language of government press releases. She compared releases issued by the Helsinki public works department in the 70s and the 90s. Earlier messages tended to be authoritarian and negative (everything was “prohibited”), while later ones were more persuasive, stressing benefits for citizens. An official\u2014or officious\u2014tone has decreased over time, while Kankaanp\u00e4\u00e4 saw a greater use of everyday words (saw and ax instead of “wood-cutting tools”). Press releases are now less like authorized announcements and more like news; even headlines have transformed from dull titles to informative summaries. These changes show that government is indeed adapting to the needs and interests of citizens, and this trend should become even more prevalent online. See how the public works department now engages with citizens (in Finnish) via Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As an enemy of officialese, I\u2019m a friend of light language\u2014a term Pirjo Hiidenmaa introduced in her book, Finnish language \u2013 Who Cares? I first began to believe it was actually possible to improve official language when I read Salli Kankaanp\u00e4\u00e4\u2019s dissertation on the language of government press releases. She compared releases issued by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english-en","7":"category-wordoftheweek-en","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}