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I was speaking a lawyer a while back (you get to meet all sorts in my job). He was complaining about the "plain English" documentation that is now required in some industries, notably the insurance industry.

His point was that the apparently obscure terminology used in legal documents has been tried and tested in courts over, in some cases, centuries of use. As a result, there is no ambiguity in the accepted meaning of the sometimes archaic phraseology.

The problems he described arise from the fact that modern education rarely includes English grammar and there is little emphasis on correct spelling. To mention subject, object or predicate to today's graduates is likely to result in a blank look.

The French are strongly militant about retaining the purity of their language. Education authorities in English speaking countries seem to be presiding over the destruction of ours.

The excuse is that English is a dynamic language and must be allowed to develop naturally: naturally, that is, apart from the insidious effects of feminism, political correctness and other government supported attacks on the language.

The downside of all this dynamism is that we now have "plain language" documents where the meanings are not plain. In fact, because of poorly constructed statements, some plain language documents are ambiguous, others manage not to say anything.

If such documents were written in clear, grammatically correct English, they would serve the purpose for which they were intended, making the meaning clear to the layperson. As it stands, many serve only to provide extra income for frustrated lawyers as they try to bring order out of chaos, while racking up chargeable hours to be added to the client's bill.

As if the lack of grammar were not enough, the march of the spell-checker has resulted in an invasion of correctly spelt but otherwise incorrect words. One example I saw recently was "now" for "know". "From" and "form" are easily substituted by hurried keyboard users and either will be accepted for the other by the spell-checker.

One substitution that owes as much to the writer's ignorance as to the software is the use of "forward" where "foreword" is intended. In my work at The Pitstop Bookshop I have seen several books that proudly claim a "forward" by some celebrity.

Plain English in legal documents is a worthy aim, but the documents must be clearly written, grammatically correct and use the correct words, correctly spelt.