While you’re prepping for incoming cold weather by consuming pumpkin spice everything, the U.S. National Weather Service is talking about plain language, of all things.
It seems people don’t necessarily pay attention to warnings about cold weather. Or maybe they don’t understand how serious a “wind chill watch” is. Yet, cold weather can be deadly. As the NWS says, “people exposed to extreme cold are susceptible to frostbite and can succumb to hypothermia in minutes.”
So on October 1, the NWS launched its “hazard simplification project.” The idea was to provide “better decision support” (jargon alert!), presumably so people would make better decisions about dressing for the cold.
Read the October issue of my newsletter, Wordnerdery, to find out how following plain language advice to “Use clear, straightforward expressions” changed the NWS cold weather alerts in the U.S.
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Related reading:
Choose short, familiar words to be understood
Tips on structure and word choice for plain language