FAQs

Why did you launch the Online Gobbledygook, Gibberish and Jargon Awards? 
 
To highlight the "best-of-the-worst" gobbledygook on the Web. The awards will spotlight techno-babble, legalese, bureaucratese and other meaningless terms, vague generalities, and wordy, nonsensical writing. 
 
What kinds of items are eligible? 
 
All types of writing are eligible, including websites, articles, news releases, blogs and presentations, as long as the item can be verified online. 
 
What are the criteria for judging? 
 
In general, the entries will be judged on the basis of: 

 

• Meaningless phrases
 

• Vague generalities
 

• Convoluted sentence structure
 

• Wordy, unintelligible jargon
 

 

• Richard Lederer, author of more than 30 books about language, history, and humor, best-selling Anguished English series and his current books, A Treasury for Dog Lovers and A Treasury for Cat Lovers.
 

• Adam Freeman, one of America's leading commentators on law and author of the book The Party of the First Part: the Curious World of Legalese
 

• Jeff Rubin, the Newsletter Guy who founded Punctuation Playtime (www.PunctuationPlaytime.com) and National Punctuation Day(www.NationalPunctuationDay.com).