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Page 6 The following is a letter to the editor which appeared some time back in a Vancouver newpaper. As you can see, it has a heading but had it been up to me, I would have called it ____ I WISH 1 HAD SAID THAT! CAN WE TALK ... WITH A TRANSLATOR? A provincial government official says that documents and forms "used primarily by seniors should be the first to be rewritten in simpler language". The authors of the report seem to think that the day after one's 65th birthday is marked by automatic senility. Not so. If anything it is the younger people, the "er, er-ing" politicians and the yuppies, bureaucrats, and other Killers of Plain English (KOPE) who appear to try to hide their lack of understanding of the simplicity of language by inventing new phrases. According to Ted Hughes, of the attorney-general's office, his commission suggests that the government "spearhead the initiative". Most seniors I know would simply "start". They would walk down the street, whereas the KOPE gang would "perambulate the thoroughfare distance-wise". It is not the seniors who substitute "call girls" and "escort service" for harlots and whores; not the seniors who say "correctional institutes" and "addictive substances" for prisons and drugs. If there are to be lessons in plain language, let them be given to those apparently ignorant (intellectually deprived, as KOPE might say) of simple English, not the poor old dumb seniors. Let these complicators of English read some Shakespeare and see how simple the better-known quotations and popular passages are, although they might have trouble understanding "to be or not to be" unless it was translated into "current existence or a viable alternative to that human condition". For a good, quick lesson in simple English let the KOPE gang read the Lord's Prayer. In that less-than-70-word prayer there are only three three-sy1lable words, 17 of two syllables, and 49 of one syllable. If KOPE has trouble understanding the foregoing I have the capability of transposing the individual and collective units of language into a more recognizable form, which will interface with their concept of communication on a linguistic level. (I can translate.) Ted Gaskell Victoria, B.C. Editor's Note: To add to Mr. Gaskell's examples, the government has gone one step beyond "correctional institutes". Those located on the Chilliwack River Road are now posted as "Sentence Management Units".