History of Clear English

Clear English is the main ingredient of Plain Language. The idea of Plain English has been around for 100 years but it was Charles Ogden in the 1930's who published the first 'Basic English' list of words.

Plain English has become more common since 1998 when the aerospace industry in Europe published a 'Simplified Technical English' standard. This has been adopted by many other industries to specify a standard use of Plain English. About the same time, US President Clinton said that all US Government agencies should write in plain language.

In the last 15 years there has been a lot of activity in most Western countries to increase the use of Plain Language. In 2010, President Obama signed the Plain Writing Act to firmly establish plain language as the standard in Government information.