There’s a lot of talk these days about dumbing down, and how things have to be explained in the simplest possible terms and appeal to the lowest common denominator for them to be successful.

No-one would advocate a situation where everything is geared towards the usage of the smallest amount of brainpower possible, because life is very often richer for the challenges it throws us, and there is nothing wrong with pushing ourselves and therefore bettering ourselves when it comes to understanding and learning.

That said, however, there is no reason to overload life with jargon and gobbledegook just for the sake of it. There is a difference between writing intelligently and filling a document with buzzwords, hip phraseology and endless strings of initials and made-up words.

Health bosses have made a plea for public documents to be written in plain English so that they are accessible by not only those with the specialist knowledge that might be required to understand all the jargon but those of us who might have an interest in the subject but not the benefit of years of experience in the field to catch all the specialist language.

And when even the health professionals are saying they read the “simple” version of the report rather than plough through the acres of mind-bending gobbledegook, then what chance do the rest of us have?

Any document which is being put into the public domain needs to tread the fine line between avoiding dumbing down and communicating in a clear, concise and above all understandable manner. It isn’t – and certainly shouldn’t read like – rocket science.