Thomas Jefferson on Plain English Drafting

The call for plain English drafting has a long history. After Thomas Jefferson drafted a bill to establish elementary schools in Virginia, he forwarded a copy to legislator Joseph Cabell and included this sardonic comment:

I should apologize, perhaps, for the style of this bill. I dislike the

verbose and intricate style of the English statutes .... You, however, can

easily correct this bill to the taste of my brother lawyers, by making

every other word a "said" or "aforesaid," and saying everything over

two or three times, so that nobody but we of the craft can untwist the

diction, and find out what it means .... "

LETTER FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOSEPH C. _CABELL, in 17 THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS

JEFFERSON, at 417-18 (Albert Ellergy Bergh ed., 1903) (1817).

(ljs)