Bureaucratese or Bureaucrapese (bureaucratic language)
“Bureaucratese” is a language spoken or written by bureaucrats, also often called “officialese” or “legalese” or “federalese” or “governmentese.” Maury Maverick (1895-1954) complained about government language that seldom resembled coversational English, calling it “gobbledygook” in March 1944. The word “bureaucratese” has been cited in print since at least August 1944.
“Bureaucrapese” (bureaucratese + crap) is a term that has been credited to San Francisco journalist Herb Caen (1916-1997).
Wiktionary: bureaucratese
Etymology
bureaucrat + -ese
Noun
bureaucratese (uncountable)
1.a style of language, typically used by bureaucrats, that uses jargon or euphemism to the detriment of broader understanding
2.any language containing many non-essential words intended to imply more importance or intelligence than actually present
Synonyms
. officialese
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
bu·reau·crat·ese noun
\ˌbyu̇r-ə-(ˌ)kra-ˈtēz, -ˈtēs, ˌbyər-\
Definition of BUREAUCRATESE
: a style of language held to be characteristic of bureaucrats and marked by abstractions, jargon, euphemisms, and circumlocutions
First Known Use of BUREAUCRATESE
1949
23 August 1944, Daily News (Middlesboro, KY), editorial, pg. 2, col. 1:
Basic Bureaucratese
Bureaucratic jargon, or what Maury Maverick calls “gobbledygook” language, has finally proved too much for the bureaucrats themselves. The Social Security Board has launched a reform campaign, spurred on by the howls of baffled citizens and a rather embarrassed report from Columbia University’s “readability” laboratory.
2 September 1944, Augusta (GA) Chronicle, pg. 4, col. 2:
Basic Bureaucratese
(The Columbus Ledger)
Bureaucratic jargon, or what Maury Maverick calls “gobbledygook” language, has finally proved too much for the bureaucrats themselves. The Social Security Board has launched a reform campaign, spurred on by the howls of baffled citizens and a rather embarrassed report from Columbia University’s “readability” laboratory.
27 January 1946, Dallas (TX) Morning News, “Simple Talk” (editorial), pt. 4, pg. 6, col. 2:
The unintelligible legislation has grown with the federal pay roll. Along with it have come directives, sonorous proclamations and executive orders, couched in terms Washington dissidents term bureaucratese.
30 March 1948, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), editorial, pg. 10, col. 1:
Spread of Bureaucratese
We are glad to welcome into the ranks of those who are opposed to “federalese,” our name for the confusingly redundant language employed by bureaucrats in official reports and “directives,” Edward II Keeling, Conservative member of the British Parliament.
(...)
We doubt that this gem of “federalese”—or “bureaucratese,” as we’d better call it, now that we have found that the use of pompous language is not confined to our own bureaucracy—will ever supplant the words of an Englishman (Shakespeare—ed.) whose fame will be more enduring than that of any Labor monster.
Google News Archive
3 March 1957, Milwaukee (WI) Journal, “Humphrey Holds Tight,” pg. 3, col. 3:
He has little patience for the stuffed shirt type which abounds in the nation’s capital and he abhors the strange, stilted jargon known as “bureaucratese.”
OCLC WorldCat record
Roman bureaucratese.
Author: Ramsay MacMullen
Publisher: New York, Fordham University Press, 1962.
Edition/Format: Book : English
OCLC WorldCat record
Windyfoggery and Bureaucratese
Author: Ross Beatty
Edition/Format: Article : English
Publication: Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Autumn, 1982, vol. 12, no. 4, p. 261-269
Database: JSTOR
10 June 1988, St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, “Channing: From furs to a monkey suit” by Jerry Berger, Everyday Magazine, pg. 1G:
City Hall may be mum on what he’ll be doing (like bureaucrapese), but the word is he will put oil on the political waters for Vinnie’s re-election campaign.
OCLC WorldCat record
Banishing bureaucratese : using plain language in government writing
Author: Judith Gillespie Myers
Publisher: Vienna, Va. : Management Concepts, ©2001.
Edition/Format: Book : English
Google Books
Slang:
The Topical Dictionary of Americanisms
By Paul Dickson
New York, NY: Walker Publishing Company, Inc.
2006
Pg. ?
Subdivisions of this lingo have emerged in education (educanto), planning (plannish, or urbabble, in the case of urban planning), the government (bureaucratese clerk-speak, governmentese, officialese, or, as the late, ever-provocative San Francisco columnist Herb Caen put it, bureaucrapese), and specific agencies of government (statese at the State Department).
Blogging the Boys
Should The Cowboys Take Someone In The Supplemental Draft?
by Tom Ryle on Jul 9, 2012 10:00 PM CDT in Dallas Cowboys General
(...)
Everybody clear on that? OK, for those who are not familiar with legalese, or the closely related language, bureaucratese (which I do speak fluently), here it is in plain English: Sometimes college players, who are not eligible at the time of the primary draft, will become eligible for some reason, after the draft but before the NFL teams get into training camp
(...)
COMMENTS
“bureaucratese bureaucrapese”
You’re welcome.
(...)
by tanstaafl on Jul 9, 2012 10:14 PM CDT