Plain English Campaign awards

The British supermodel, Naomi Campbell, has won Plain English Campaign's annual Foot in Mouth award for the following comment which she reportedly made in June.

"I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

The Foot in Mouth award is given for a baffling quote made by a public figure. Past winners of the award include Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Gere, Alicia Silverstone and Tracey Emin.

Seven Golden Bulls have been awarded this year, including one to the writer, broadcaster and academic, Germaine Greer. Fife Council won a Golden Bull for a confusing letter about bin collection dates. Wheale, Thomas, Hodgins, a recruitment agency, have landed a second Golden Bull for a job advertisement, having previously won one in 2001.

Broadcast journalist Mary Nightingale will present the awards at the Brewery, Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4SD on 12 December 2006. It will be the 27th Plain English Campaign awards ceremony.

Foot in Mouth Award :
Naomi Campbell
"I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

Golden Bull winners
Crafts Council of Ireland (CCOI) for a circular letter
'The re-writing of the vocabulary of intemporal Irish heritage is a possible vector for submissions on the condition that this transposition is resolutely anchored in the 21st century through a contemporary lens that absolutely avoids drifting into the vernacular.'

Germaine Greer for a column in the Guardian
'The first attribute of the art object is that it creates a discontinuity between itself and the unsynthesised manifold.'

Bury County Court - for a ‘General Form of Judgment or Order’
'IT IS ORDERED THAT THE CLAIM BE ADJOURNED GENERALLY WITH PERMISSION TO THE CLAIMANT TO RESTORE TO THE LIST WITHOUT FORMAL APPLICATION NOT LATER THAN 16:00 HOURS ON THE 12TH SEPTEMBER 2006 WHEREUPON THE CLAIM DO STAND STRUCK OUT IF NOT SO RESTORED'

Eastleigh Borough Council for a Notice given under the Building Act 1984
'Hereby in accordance with the provision of the Building Act 1984, Section 32 declares that the said plans shall be of no effect and accordingly the said Act and the said Building Regulations shall as respects the proposed work have effect as if no plan had been deposited.'

Wheale, Thomas, Hodgins plc for a job advertisement
'Our client is a pan-European start-up leveraging current cutting edge I.P. (already specified) with an outstanding product/value solutions set. It is literally the right product, in the right place at the right time… by linking high-value disparate legacy systems to achieve connectivity between strategic partners/acquisition targets and/or disparate corporate divisions. The opportunity exists to be the same (i.e. right person etc. etc) in a growth opportunity funded by private equity capital that hits the 'sweet-spot' in major cost driven European markets.'

Fife Council for a letter about a change to bin collection dates
'It has been brought to our attention that due to changes made to your grey household wastes bin collection dates within your new calendar. Your bin will be emptied week beginning the 20th March 2006, then next collection would not be until the week beginning the 10th April 2006. Thus having to wait 3 weeks for collection.
Therefore we are to provide a normal collection on your normal collection day, week starting the 3rd April and again on your new collection date, week starting the 10th April then there after every 2 weeks.'

The Institute for Fiscal Studies for a website document description
'While the literature on nonclassical measurement error traditionally relies on the availability of an auxiliary dataset containing correctly measured observations, this paper establishes that the availability of instruments enables the identification of a large class of nonclassical nonlinear errors-in-variables models with continuously distributed variables.'