Congratulations to Donald Rumsfeld on winning this year's Plain English Campaign award - for those immortal words, "As we know, there are known knowns . . . We also know there are known unknowns; but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know." Not much you can add to that really. It's a bit like the poems of Robert Browning about which it used to be said, there were once two people who could understand them: Robert Browning and God. And now there's only God.

It's easy to laugh at the contortions of politicians trying to avoid a straight answer to a straight question. But there is a serious point behind the Plain English campaign. Just as we're concerned at the purity of the air we breathe and the water we drink, so we should care about the clarity of the words we speak. Waffle, obfuscation and impenetrable jargon are to communication what global warming is to the earth's atmosphere. Debase language and you erode the very environment of thought.

The opening chapters of the bible are about the importance of language. God says, Let there be and there was. In the beginning was the word. One of our ancient translations reads the phrase that "man became a living being," as man became "a speaking soul." And when God wanted to stop people building the tower of Babel he simply confused their speech. It wasn't their technical prowess that failed but their ability to make themselves understood. Just as God made the natural world with words, so we make our social world with words, and when they lose their meaning, so too does much else.

When scientists hide behind technical terminology, or specialists use language only a fellow professional can understand, it's like saying to the rest of us: we know what we're doing even if you don't. When politicians take refuge in clouds of verbiage, it's a way of avoiding accountability for things we have a right to know. It's more than courtesy to speak clearly. People who make decisions that have an effect on our lives have a duty to communicate so that we can know what's at stake. What I admire about the prophets of the Bible is that though they had the most exalted visions, they translated them into plain words whose meaning was unmistakable.

To think straight we must speak clearly. To communicate we must speak simply. And to win trust we must speak honestly. Or in plain English, never believe someone you can't understand.

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