Having spent many years working with and for local government, I know about jargon. (I can almost hear your chorus of agreement!). It comes from the anonymous people behind the scenes and I have sat in many meetings embarrassed as councillors have debated important issues, clearly not understanding the jargon-ridden reports in front of them.

Corporate communications and documents can in their way be as bad, but government and NGOs, in my opinion, are the worst offenders. Why, I really don't know, because they are the ones which most need to connect with their audiences.

I've just completed a major plan for a client, and part of the brief was to tell their story and communicate their plan in lay language so the public could easily read and understand. This was a departure for them which public feedback told them was really welcomed. 

Internal communication, too, should rely on lay language. So often I've heard of staff getting the wrong end of the stick because of unintelligible jargon.

Here's a 'memo' I composed for a LinkedIn discussion on this subject. Sadly, it's not too far from the truth for many organisations.

"I am confident that, at the end of the day, we will gain some quick wins through onboarding then socialising the concept of eliminating jargon. Going forward, we will all be on the same page – indeed singing from the same song sheet – and be thinking out of the box when it comes to the language we utilise in the C-suite. Initially, it will be similar to herding cats, and the process will identify the square pegs in the round holes, but we will achieve some upside and a paradigm shift as we reach out and break the silos through the use of intelligible language.

Or: "We're not using jargon from now on, so that everyone can communicate effectively."

That's what it's all about - effective communication both internally and externally. That's a basic requirement for effective public relations and communication in all its forms.