 | A fact from Officialese appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 September 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Interwiki edit
Since your article do not focus on the English language in its definition, I have inserted interwikilink to de.wiki and it.wiki. the article of it.wiki is a generic introduction of the concept, de.wiki has a generic meaning in the title and a warning that states the page is to german-centered and needs to be revised. I would prefer to keep these interwikilinks to allow the pages to "merge" their content in a wide perspective of the problem, if it is ok for you. the page on it.wiki may be merged with the page of the specific description of the italian "officialese", that will be probably inserted as a paragraph there after the generic introduction.--Alexmar983 (talk) 01:54, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
- Interwikis are helpful. As long as the other articles intend to talk about the concept in general, that's fine. Eventually a comprehensive article should discuss the variants in all different languages, of course. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 18:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Surely euphemism and circumlocution are significant identifiers in diagnosing officialese in any language. Only "vagueness" is mentioned in the article: this usage is itself vague.--Wetman (talk) 16:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
- If you can find sources for that, please expand. This article is just start class. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Passive over active edit
Does anyone else find it awkward that part of the definition of Officialese has to do with the passive voice, and then the following sentence "can be construed" to be passive rather than active?
Officialese is characterized by a preference for wordy, long sentences; a preference for complex words or buzzwords over simple, traditional ones; a preference for vagueness over directness and a preference for passive over active voice[6] (some of those elements may, however, vary between different times and languages[7]). The history of officialese can be traced to the history of officialdom, as far back as the eldest human civilizations and their surviving official writings.[8]