Friday, May 26, 2017

bullshit alert at World Bank

Paul Romer
Even the well-confined and mighty have their limits:
The chief economist at the World Bank has stepped down from its research arm after staff were vexed by demands to write succinctly, including cutting superfluous uses of the word “and” in reports or emails.
Paul Romer, 61, will leave the Development Economics Group (DEC), according to a staff announcement reported by Bloomberg. He had asked for shorter emails, while also cutting staff off if they talked for too long during presentations, it said....
A 2015 study by Stanford University’s Literary Lab found World Bank publications seemed almost to be “another language”. The study coined the term “Bankspeak” to describe report styles becoming “more codified, self-referential, and detached from everyday language.”
Mr. Romer concedes he suffers from dyslexia, but strongly implied that that was no reason for others to convolute and complicate.

Not that it will have any effect, but bless his heart. There are simply too many people who see straightforwardness and simplicity as a sign of weakness. If I'm abstruse, I must be smart and worthy of veneration... oh yeah, and a pay raise.

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