Keep it simple, your honour.

Why is Judge Judy one of America’s highest-rated TV shows? Why is her show so popular with viewers all over the English-speaking world?

The plaintiffs and defendants are very ordinary people. Some of them would appear to be naturally delinquent, to some degree. Few of them seem to be the beneficiaries of higher education, and doubtless none of them would claim to be intellectuals. In truth, they’re not really very interesting people.

The cases are trivial. He stole my TV. She owes me a hundred bucks. We wonder if these matters would ever have come before a real court in the first place. Are they really proper court material, we ask?

And Judge Judy herself is not someone you’d want to appear before – or maybe even sit beside on a bus.

Dull cases, brought by ordinary, sometimes rather dull, people. Cases determined in summary style, often perversely, by a generally unlikeable judge.  What makes it such compelling viewing?

Simplicity. There are goodies and baddies. We can quickly decide who’s which, and take sides.

We can try and predict  for whom the judge will find, and why. And it’s all over in a relative flash. Three or four cases in half an hour?

People like justice. Of course we do. In a world where we sometimes doubt such a quality exists, we can watch Judge Judy dispense it rapid-fire. When we agree with her, we’re reassured. When we disagree, we can relish our righteous indignation.

And this isn’t play stuff. Scheindlin’s findin’s are bindin’. As far as the participants are concerned, this is as good as a real court of law.

But, by golly, it’s so simple. Unlike a real court of law, we can understand it. Because Judge Judy speaks not only like hizonner, but – you remember that junior school teacher? In fact, you remember how that junior school teacher treated you almost like another parent?  In language we could – and still can – clearly understand. That made it very clear who was wrong, and who was right, and what ought to be. There’s no mistaking Judge Judy. If you done wrong, you’ll know all about it. If you bin wronged, she may not like you, but she’ll look after you.

And don’t you dare answer back…

Judge Judy is about as authoritative as one could wish to be. Everyone listening to her knows where they stand. Everyone listening knows exactly what she means. The way Judge Judy delivers it, even though you may not like it, you know she’s right. At worst, you suspect she’s right.

And she does it without long speeches, without long words, without pompous oratory.

Come on guys, there’s a lesson here. Keep it simple. Keep it short. And keep it in plain language. Easy Understanding Wins Followers.

You may be a businessman, or an official, or a politician. But if you can engage your audience the way Judge Judy does, they’ll keep coming back for more. Even if they don’t like you.

They really wouldn't like it

The aggrieved family are interviewed outside the courthouse, asked about the reaction to the acquittal of the man who set fire to their house.

They say ‘ We’d just like to say how angry we are…’

A senior Army officer is interviewed on the radio.  Some of his troops had got carried away with war, and had abused a prisoner. The regiment was ashamed.

He says ‘ I’d like to apologise, most sincerely…’

The CEO of the oil company is asked about spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico. He says ‘ I’d like to say how sorry we are…’

None of them mean it.

They certainly don’t like saying these things. They don’t enjoy it, and there’s no pleasure in making their statements.

The aggrieved family can be forgiven. They almost certainly don’t have helpers experienced in the matters of media interviews and public statements.

The army officer does, though. And the CEO. They should know better. They should pick their words more carefully.

‘I have to say how sorry we are…’

‘I must apologise…’

Or even ‘We regret. We are sorry. We apologise.’

It’s not that listeners forensically examine such statements, looking for poorly-chosen words and phrases. We hear – and listen – very quickly these days. On the run, on the fly. We don’t remember the exact words. Rather, we absorb a sense of someone’s meaning. On the way, we unconsciously calculate their sincerity.

Everyday words and phrases slip by us un-noted. Speakers often introduce a statement with ‘I’d like to say – this or that.’  It’s commonplace.

But something happens with a change of words. Phrases such as ‘We regret’ or ‘We’re sorry’ or ‘We apologise’ are much less commonplace. They trigger that little extra recognition that turns a statement away from the glib, toward the genuine. All without the listener really knowing it’s happening.

Just a few better-chosen words can change a message from one that people hear – into one to which they listen.

Let's all sing from the same list of words

Robust. That’s the word of the month.  Ask anyone in government about the UK’s summer riots, and the response will include the word ‘robust’.

Doesn’t matter who you ask. Robust policing. Robust legislation. Robust sentencing. A robust approach. A robust response.

Alright, alright. Enough with the robustness. We get it. You plan on not pussyfooting around.

But it’s not credible. This month’s buzzword turns fast into this month’s cliché. And clichés simply skate lightly and unrecognised across a listener’s awareness. They become a devalued currency.

What happened? Did someone in Downing Street send a text to everyone, telling them the key word was 'robust'?  Fine, if they also allowed the speakers to choose their own form of words to mean the same thing (as if they were people with independent minds).

May be the speakers simply wanted to sound like The Leader – ‘I’m on the same page as David, y’know’.  Maybe they were afraid of not sounding like The Leader – ‘if I say something different, it may backfire on me. If I say what Downing Street says, at least I won’t be blamed on my own’.

Or maybe they just thought robust was a bloody good word, and couldn’t come up with anything better.

Any of these possibilities is worrisome. Of course the management team should sound like it’s together on an issue. But parrot-speak is pointless.

When a director ‘gives’ an actor his lines, he’s doing the acting for him. The result is simply bad, unconvincing acting. Let the actor find a way to deliver the meaning, and suddenly, the performance goes from ham to convincing. Same when some turkey in corporate communications tells the management team what to say. Two spokesmen later, the strategy is glaring.

When a spokesman decides to copy his guv’nor, he simply sounds like a mindless puppet (OK, so all puppets are mindless, but we’re trying to make a point here). Nobody really believes he means what he says.

When people are well-briefed, in a constant and fundamental way, they’ll know the right thing to say without waiting for an SMS script. There’s a chance people will begin to believe them.

If they don’t instinctively know what to say, without being given their lines, maybe they shouldn’t be in that role. And if you don’t trust them to say the right thing on their own, maybe you shouldn’t be managing them.

And besides, most of the time they don’t mean robust. Robust defences, robust legislation, maybe. Robust policing? Robust sentencing? No. If they really want to stick to the theme there, the word they should use is robustious.

Bet they don’t.

This is no time to be coy

Good sailing shoes are waterproof. Which usually means, they don’t ventilate well. Smelly shoes are often a notable facet of life aboard small boats.

My own shoes got a degree too lived-in on a recent passage from Liverpool to Southampton. The rest of the crew were pretty kind about it. But I know that’s what they were doing, so I resolved to prevent the problem happening again.

I bought a bottle of shoe deodorant.  This is what it says on the label:

Clarks Odour Killer Spray with its unique odour-eliminating formula disrupts the metabolic process of unwanted odour-causing micro-organisms and thus interrupts their ability to function, grow and reproduce.

Run that by me again? Ignore the 27-word, one-sentence length of the paragraph. Even the first and only comma, three words from end, has a begrudging feel about it..

But my point is this: what we read isn’t selling copy. It’s a lazy parroting of the manufacturers’ brief to the packaging designers. It’s a rambling explanation of how the stuff works. It doesn’t make me feel any better for buying it.

Surely, if we disrupt the metabolic process of anything to the point where it can’t function, grow and reproduce (which is a bit like saying ‘Hello, good evening and welcome’), we pretty much kill the beggar. That, I’m sure, is how your average smelly-trainer-wearing jock would prefer to articulate it. And why do we specify that it works on unwanted odour-causing micro-organisms? Aren’t they all unwanted? Does it spare the wanted ones?

What’s wrong with telling it like it is? Odour Killer Spray kills the bugs that make shoes smelly. One squirt, and your shoes are fresh again!

I know what’s wrong with it. It means hiring a writer. But nowadays, the ability to touch-text is more highly regarded than the ability to spell, or parse a sentence. No need to pay someone to do what I can do myself, they say.

The label also features two simple drawings. One of a hand, squirting the stuff from the bottle into a shoe. In case you don’t know how to squirt deodorant into a shoe. And a picture of a shoe drying. Little lines throb and radiate from the entire shoe. Those little lines make it look just like the stinky shoe it was in the first place …

I guess they didn’t want to hire an art director, either.