Kick woolly adjectives out of health and safety regulations

‘When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when close together. They give strength when they are wide apart.’ 

Not my words, but the ever-quotable Mark Twain. It’s advice that the Cabinet Office folks are listening to  now, over in the forum Red Tape Challenge. They’ve invited people to suggest ways of making health and safety legislation ‘less burdensome’.
Well, I’d ditch the clunkily archaic ‘burdensome’ to begin with, plus the standard health and safety phrase ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’. 

What do they mean by ‘reasonable’? or ‘adequate’? or ‘relevant’? And do we as readers understand and interpret those adjectives in the same way?

Subjective vs objective

I think I’m funny (yes, both peculiar and ha-ha). But that’s just my opinion. If you don’t laugh, then I’m not funny for you. I won’t accuse you of having a sense of humour gap. I just haven’t given you what you were expecting. 

Funny is an adjective that describes me in a subjective way:

Subjective: based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. (Oxford Dictionaries)

I know I’m 5ft 9in tall in my socks. Tall describes me in a slightly more objective way, although standing next to, say, Peter Crouch, I’d be a bit of a shorty.

Objective: not influenced by personal feelings or opinions (Oxford Dictionaries)

How do you take your coffee?  

Regular? Massimo? Grande?  Or, as in the classic Frasier sketch, Piccolo, Macho, Mucho, or Mucho Macho?

The only objective way to get the amount you prefer is to ask to see the size of the cup. When I do this, I see that ‘Regular’ is (in my subjective opinion) ‘Massive’.

Objective and measurable

An adjective describes a noun. The ‘ject’ has its Latin roots in ‘throw’. That’s often what we do with adjectives – toss them into text without thinking. 

To be helpful in legislation, adjectives need to be objective and measurable, so that everyone interprets the rules in the same way. Otherwise the adjectives raise more questions than answers. For example:

Employees must be given adequate training

• What is adequate training? 
• What accreditations and certificates do my employees need?
• Who is qualified to train my employees?
• How much will the training cost?
• How long will my employees need to take off work?
• What if my employees’ first language isn’t English?

Employers, especially in SMEs, need clear, step-by-step instructions for reaching the standards considered to be ‘adequate’. And they need these instructions straight away, before they read all the scary stuff about ‘enforcement’, ‘penalties’ and ‘failure to comply’.