When Juliet asked this question in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet she answered herself: 'That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet'.
But when it comes to naming babies, most people would disagree. The poet John Keats felt that he had been unlucky: 'If you should have a boy do not christen him John—'Tis a bad name and goes against a man. If my name had been Edmund I should have been more fortunate.
Plain English
People have been cursing unclear official and business writing for many years, calling it waffle, persiflage, bombast, jargon, and gobbledygook. In the nineteenth century Jeremy Bentham lambasted the legal English of his day as garbage and excrement. The Oxford Guide to Plain English shows how writers in companies, law firms and public bodies can be more lucid in their dealings with citizens and customers by using 'plain English' or 'plain language'.
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