FREMONT, CA--(Marketwire - April 14, 2010) - Nick Renton, author of "Compendium of Good Writing" and "Enjoy Your English!" has won first and second prize in the Online Gobbledygook, Gibberish and Jargon Awards. All the entries are available at http://www.GobbledygookAward.com.
The awards highlight the "best-of-the-worst" gobbledygook on the Web, including techno-babble, legalese, bureaucratese and other meaningless phrases, vague generalities and nonsensical writing.
Renton's "social relations" entry, an excerpt from the article "Further Reflections on the Conversations of Our Time" (Diacritics, spring 1997), won first prize because it was "incomprehensible," "full of jargon" and "self-important." One judge admitted that he "had no clue about the speaker's subject matter" and "would not want to hang out with anyone who did."
Renton's other submission, the "royal commission," won second prize because it was "a great example of using 92 words when 20 would have sufficed."
Nancy Friedman of Wordworking got third prize with her entry of an ad touting the "bewildering wild beauty" of Givenchy heels.
"We hope that this award will inspire organizations to look at how they communicate, and stamp out -- or at least reduce -- the amount of gobbledygook in the world,'" said Kay Paumier, a marketing-communications consultant and founder of the Online Gobbledygook, Gibberish and Jargon Awards.
All types of writing are eligible for the Online Gobbledygook, Gibberish and Jargon Awards, including websites, articles and news releases, as long as the item can be verified online.
In addition to Paumier, the judges were:
About the Gobbledygook Awards
The Online Gobbledygook, Gibberish and Jargon Awards are sponsored by the California-based Communications Plus marketing-communications and public relations firm (http://www.CommunicationsPlus.net). For more information visit http://www.GobbledygookAward.com, e-mail info@GobbledygookAward.com or call 510-656-8512.
Contact Information:
Kay Paumier
Communications Plus
510-656-8523