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Bob Just before we get into today's episode, I wanted to let you know that in the coming weeks, we'll be joined by two very special guests In-Game Learning's very own Christopher Balmford and Cinzia Theobald. And this time, we're doing things a little differently. We'll be opening up questions for the episode, and we'd love to hear from you. You can ask anything. Whether it's insights from their careers, behind the scenes horror stories, lessons learned the hard way, or even their very favorite sneaky midnight snack. To submit your questions, please head to the show notes. Now, please enjoy today's episode.
Plain language benefits the language itself, because good and clear language would raise the status of the language. It would make people respect the language more. It would help the language stay a language that you can use in all areas of life, and therefore it will strengthen the language, not just as a cultural object, as you say, but also as the main infrastructure in society.
Bob Welcome to Top of Their Game, the show where we speak with the people, making communications clearer, fairer, and just plain better. I'm your host, Bob Milstein, a lawyer and plain language trainer, practitioner and advocate. Regular listeners — and aren't we all — may remember that in a previous podcast, Annetta Cheek, a driving force behind the introduction of plain language legislation in the USA, was singing the praises of Norway and the many exciting initiatives happening there on the plain language front. In fact, if I recall correctly, Annetta described Norway as a bit of a poster child for plain language. Today's guest has had a lot to do with making that happen. Torin Rexton is a plain language expert at the Language Council of Norway. As a plain language advocate, lecturer, editor and author since two thousand and eight, she's played a central part in building plain language awareness and competence, an initiative which has set a new standard for public communication in Norway. She represents the Norwegian standardization body to ISO 24995 plain language and serves on the drafting committee of ISO working Group eleven for the standard. For those not initiated in the wonderful world of ISO that stands for International Organization for standardization, you'll hear quite a lot about it during our chat. Torin is also project manager for the implementation of the Norwegian Language Act, which contains a plain language section. She headed the programming committee for the plane. Twenty nineteen conference in Oslo and is in charge of the Language Council's plain language strategies, as you'll hear today. Torin is passionate about innovation, service design and good user experience, and she's equally passionate about the preservation of minority languages. And now. Torin Reksten. Torin thank you for joining us.
Torunn Lovely to be here.
Bob You wouldn't have heard this, but in the introduction I suggested that Norway is known in many circles as the poster child for plain language. Shortly I'm going to ask you to explore that proposition with me. But before we do that, I want to take you back to some basics about the Norwegian language, what it is, how many there are, how they get taught, to whom and when and how that language diversity might inform the approaches that regulators have ultimately had to take to regulating language. In Norway.
Torunn Post child, no less. That's an exciting concept. I haven't heard of that before, but we have in Norway two written varieties of the Norwegian language. And children need to learn both in school. But you choose the main language from year one. Then students. They learn also English in school and students in the Sami area, the Sami. They would very often learn Sami or. We also have other national minority languages like Kven, which is a variant of the Finnish language. So there are different approaches to that depending on where you live, of course, but for the Norwegian language, one of the language variety is much larger than the other one. But the duality really affects our society in both good ways and in more challenging ways. I would say the two language varieties have been regulated in language acts for a very long time because they are equal by law. But I think from January first, twenty twenty two, we got a new language act which reflects the entire language policy and our language diversity. So we have sections for Sami languages and for national minority languages as well. In that act. I'm not sure I'm answering your question because you pushed the on button and I can talk about this for hours.
Bob I know you've given me a lot, so I want to break it down a little bit. You mentioned the two languages that children learn before they get a bit older and start learning English. What are those two languages?
Torunn Well, usually in kindergarten and in school you will choose one language variety. And it's very often a geographical choice. Where you live really depends on what you are taught in school. But then when you get a little older, you are also required to learn the other language variety, which means those who start working in public service. Later, they are required to master both and it is in our language act regulated. How much of the two varieties should be used in government agencies?
Bob What are those languages called?
Torunn Oh yes. Well, to explain their names, I will also have to give you a little bit of history. Norway was in union with Denmark. Our big brother Denmark for four hundred years, which after the Black Plague in the thirteen hundreds, sort of wiped out everyone who could read and write. So that means we were very open to being influenced language wise. So Danish was our language for almost four hundred years. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it influenced our language heavily. So the written language of Norway back in the eighteen hundreds was really Danish. And then we have this variety of dialects in Norway. The spoken language is very strong and dialects here have. Well, now anyway, a high status People don't have to hide their dialects. People are very language aware and feel connected. We have a lot of our identity in our dialects. So there was a project. There was this man who was given a state scholarship to walk around all of Norway and gather insights from dialects, how people would say things and written language was constructed based on that. And that's why it's called New Norwegian Nynorsk, which is really based on old dialects. So we have Nynorsk, which is based on spoken language, and then we have Bokmal, which is language of books directly translated, which is now a modified version of Danish. I mean, it's developed in its own right. So it's proper Norwegian now, but there aren't really huge differences. We can easily understand the different ones, but there are certain traits that are a little different. For instance, Nynorsk based on a spoken language, lends itself very well to plain language because you can actually write how you speak, which often helps in the plain language communication, I would say.
Bob I think there's an old aphorism. I'm not sure if it was Noah Webster who said that the pen must, in due course, comply with the tongue. In other words, it's about language as spoken. Yeah.
Torunn That being said, Norwegian Bokmal does lend itself quite well to clarity. I mean, it's a Germanic language, but as opposed to, for instance, German verbs come very early in the sentence usually, which helps get the right understanding from the start. So we have a good starting point for clear language within our language.
Bob And how new is new Norwegian?
Torunn Well, this is in the eighteen hundreds. I mean, we got our Constitution in eighteen fourteen and that's when we broke free of Denmark. I'm not sure that's the right way to say it, but we entered then into another union with Sweden. But we got our independence in eighteen fourteen. So this getting back to the true Norwegian was also part of building a nation. So it's a very national romantic time in our history because we were trying to find out what is the real Norwegian, getting back to the roots and building a new country back then. And that was also the case for the languages.
Bob I've heard you interviewed elsewhere, where you talk about the Constitution, and in particular, a provision that advocates for open and enlightened public discourse. Is that constitutional imperative, something that has driven Norway's approach to clear and plain language?
Torunn Oh, very good question.
Bob I knew I'd have one. It's a law of everything. Sooner or later.
Torunn I'm sure you have several. Uh, this is actually section one hundred of our Constitution, and it's the last sentence in a rather long section about freedom of speech. And this sentence you're referring to about the public agencies, the state government, municipalities are responsible for creating a good context and environment for an enlightened public discourse. Uh, this is an amendment, I think, from two thousand and four. So it's a relatively new one. I can't take on saying anything about how it's shaped us, but I do know that when we got the language act in twenty twenty two, with a separate section on plain language, some of our legal no ours, they would say that the language act is actually a way of making Constitution concrete and actionable. Really.
Bob So far as Norway's plain language journey is concerned, did it effectively start and end with the language legislation, or were there things that preceded it?
Torunn Oh certainly not. I would maybe say even the other way around. I mean, we've had plain language initiatives in Norway since the sixties, but they've never been systematic. You know, someone has always thought this is a good idea. And, you know, for obvious reasons, there's the business case for plain language that's always there. And then of course, there is something more. But I would say our systematic work started in two thousand and eight, and it was really the work of one government minister. One of her underlying government agencies sent out a letter to a lot of retired people who didn't understand that they needed to act to get their pension. So it was kind of initiated by a scandal back then. So she immediately called the Citizens Conference, and demands for plain language were one of the top three outcomes of that conference. So she started a project, a big government project about plain language in Norway's public service.
Bob I have a feeling I'm about to ask you another piece of Norwegian history. But when you say Citizens conference, is that a thing that happens in Norway?
Torunn Um, not very often, but it is a thing that happens in, I think, a lot of European countries I've heard of. Not necessarily only citizens conference, but citizens assemblies as a part of open government. So it's a way of involving citizens. And I know samples from England and Ireland where they use, you know, the church hall for these assemblies. So I think maybe this conference was a Norwegian version of that, but it's not common. But it is a tool in open government.
Bob These various plain language oriented initiatives have they always emanated from and focused on public agencies rather than the private sector in Norway?
Torunn Um, we have worked with private companies as well, mainly, I would say insurance companies and banks who really see the advantage of using plain language in their communication. But I work for the government agency responsible for implementing the plain language policies. And that only applies to public bodies. So I don't work so much with them. So I think if you ask someone working with plain language for a bank, you might get a different perspective on that.
Bob You mentioned earlier the Language Act. I'll ask a very naive question. Why does the country need a language act? Is it a cultural preservation exercise?
Torunn Um, you know, it took thirteen years of different programs, etc. and then it became part of the act, which was decided or passed in Parliament in twenty twenty one and entered into force in twenty twenty two. And we have had other acts regulating language, especially the two language varieties and how they shall be used in the public sector. But this was then an opportunity to gather the entire language policy, which had not been in legislation before. Not all of it. Some had been in different staring documents. There is a section on the Scandinavian languages. For instance, a person can write to Norwegian public agencies in Swedish or Danish. They can't expect to get a reply in that language, but they can use it. And that's part of preserving our community in Scandinavia, because the languages should be mutually understandable. Of course, there are the obvious reasons for using plain language, but there is another important reason for introducing a plain language section into the act. You know, languages can be replaced by other languages for small languages like Norwegian. We do see there is a threat from especially English, but you know, there could be also other languages influencing our language heavily. So in that respect, I would say it is a preservation idea. But plain language benefits the language itself, because good and clear language would raise the status of the language. It would make people respect the language more. It would help the language Stay a language that you can use in all areas of life, and therefore it will strengthen the language, not just as a cultural object, as you say, but also as the main infrastructure in society. I think it's the only country I know where. It's part of the reasoning for the section in the act.
Bob It's fundamental to an engaged and informed democratic public.
Torunn Yes, absolutely. At universities, for instance, you know, PhDs are now published in English. We call it losing domain. So we don't want Norwegian to lose domain in all areas and ensuring that the language that we produce, at least is good does help. And this is particularly relevant now with the use of AI.
Bob I definitely want to come to that issue shortly. But before we do, I want to take you back to the legislation and the fact that part of it deals specifically with the topic of plain language. So my first question is how do you actually say plain language? Two languages in Norwegian.
Torunn Oh, we say clouds brook. And that works in both the language varieties. And it's clear language because, you know, plain has a different context.
Bob I absolutely agree. I'm still flummoxed that that's the word that gets the international carriage, because it does convey a sense of blandness about it. And that's not what it is clear. Is the word reader focused?
Torunn Yes, reader focused is what we would say now, and clear is how it translates best into Norwegian. That is also a big discussion everywhere. Always, I think. And maybe it gives rise to the idea that plain language is dumbing down the language, which we of course all know. It's not about that at all.
Bob I did see an interview you gave to a New Zealand plain language expert in which you both shared war stories about your respective legislative environments for plain language. And I felt very jealous and very sad because I had a distinct case of plain language legislative deprivation syndrome. Because we don't have plain language legislation in Australia, we don't have it yet. I want you to share some insights about the country's experience with the plain language legislation. My first question is, is the definition of plain language in your legislation the same as the ISO definition?
Torunn So the ISO standard on plain language is based on these four key words, which have become governing principles which are relevant. Content should be relevant, and then it should be findable, understandable and usable.
Bob And the Norwegian legislation, does it adopt that?
Torunn The Norwegian section says that public bodies should use a language which is correct, clear and adapted to the target audience? I mean, the wording is not perfect, but it covers what we need. And by correct, it's about the correctness of the language itself. And for Norwegian is regulated in that way. Not like English. My agency, the Language Council of Norway. We are also responsible for deciding on orthography and spelling, etc. so it's it's part of that. And because I was fortunate enough to be part of the drafting committee for the first ISO standard, I was also able to introduce this concept from our act. We got in a guideline saying, if there are official language norms, you should follow them or something to that effect. So in a way, it's not our act that reflects the standard, but I've been able to introduce elements from how we can interpret the act into the standard. And because how we interpret the act should be flexible and it is changing a bit. And the plain language discourse in Norway now is really a lot about ethical communication. And I should point out, the ISO standard gives guidelines for authors who want to write documents in clear language, and there is a section there about selecting content ethically, saying that a content should not be misleading or wrong, or you shouldn't leave out anything that the reader needs to know. And this was a much discussed guideline, not only in the ISO group, but also at international conferences, etc., with the question do we really need to say that you shouldn't lie? But if it's important enough to enough people, it becomes part of the standard. So there were strong voices from other parts of the world who said, yes, we do need to have these ethical guidelines nationally and internationally. There's so much information out there that you can't trust anymore. So I think it's more the developments in the world that make it necessary, because before we would always trust the information from government. We say that trust in society is the Nordic gold, the Nordic Council of Ministers said in a report. We do still enjoy high trust in government and we want to maintain that trust and plain language is an important tool to do so.
Bob I won't be shocking you if I was to suggest that the world is a fairly divided place at the moment. I'm conscious that in New Zealand, for example, when it came to their plain language legislation, it became a bit of a political football, and therefore you'd have the red tape gone mad. School, who would push against it? Are there similar forces at play in similar debates that take place in Norway?
Torunn Our act is not as specific as the New Zealand one. Well, as long as they have the Act, I'm still very envious of it because it does set out certain requirements for how to follow it up. We don't have that. There's no demand for government agencies to do this and this and this. Specifically. We give guidance for how to implement plain language in organisations, but it's not really debated what people in other countries found fascinating when I talk about this is how, since two thousand and eight, plain language has been steady even through shifting governments, because you can always find the arguments. This First Minister that I was talking about, she was from more of the left side in politics. So she would use, you know, the democracy arguments and, you know, legal safety, etc., as the argument for using plain language. And when later we got a government that is more right wing, I have to say, the difference between the left and right wing in Norway is not as big as in certain other countries. But still there's a change. And then it was all about, you know, efficiency and saving money, saving time. So you can always argue that plain language is a good idea. So it has been a lot of top down initiatives. But also the initiatives in Norway are bottom up because people expect good service, they expect their communication to be clear and they demand it.
Bob Want to come back to you and how you got involved in this area. So take me back, if you will, to what got you in this territory?
Torunn Well, I came to it through public service, my work with the Language Council, and I started there after having worked for the police, for Interpol, international police cooperation.
Bob I know what the police is, but I'm not sure if I know too much about the language council. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Torunn Yes. So I started there because of my interest in languages. And the Language Council is a government institution under the Ministry of Culture. So we are a public agency and we are, as I said earlier, also responsible for following up on Norway's language policy but also on the language itself. So it's about the language. We have people working, you know, with dictionaries, with punctuation changes, answering questions about language. Everything concerning the language itself. And then we also have the follow up on the policies. For instance, I'm responsible for following up on the plain language section. We have others to follow up on sign language. Norwegian Sign Language has a separate section in the Act and minority languages. Indigenous languages like the Sami languages has a section in the Act, etc. so our goal is to strengthen the Norwegian language varieties and also our minority languages protect and strengthen them.
Bob So it started with the Language Council. How long were you there for? Are you still there?
Torunn I am I started in two thousand and eight, which was also by chance the year that this first major plain language programming government started. Of course, my work and how we approach it and how we cooperate with others have changed over the years, but I'm very happy to have been a part of that journey. From plain language being a relatively unknown concept to there now being legislation about it. So it's been quite a journey, I would say. You know, in the start we didn't really know what to do. And that's how we got involved with the international community. We look to Sweden, our neighbours have been our mentors. They worked with plain language in government since the seventies. And then we found plain and clarity and the international community, which is such a generous sharing community, we could get fresh research from that country and we could find tools from others. So we got a head start because everything that was already there and the generous people wanting to share.
Bob And you got quite involved in that international community. Do you want to say a bit about the roles you've held?
Torunn Sure. Well, because we've had so much help from our friends, we also want to give something back, and I love being part of that. Right now, I'm vice president of the Plain Language Association International, also known as plain. And I'm on the board of the International Plain Language Federation, member of clarity. I wanted to quote our current president, Julie Clement, what she said in our last international conference. She said, going to these conferences, meeting these people, it's finding my people. And that's how I feel there as well. The international plain language community is my happy place. It's where I really get the energy to move on. So being vice president of plain has certain duties, and I'm also heavily involved with the ISO standards because we didn't stop at part one. There is now a part two on legal communication as well, which is based on the first one, and I was part of the drafting group for that one as well. There is now one coming for science writing and part for which I'm particularly excited about. I'm happy to co-chair that project with a colleague from South Africa. And this is a requirement standard for implementing plain language in organizations. So that means when it comes out, organizations can be certified as plain language organizations. And that is where my passion is right now implementing and making plain language stick and become part of a culture in an organization.
Bob So for those who aren't super familiar with the world of ISO and standards, as I understand it, part one of the part two and part three, they are not mandatory standards. They are discretionary. Organizations can use them if they wish. Why does part four excite you so much?
Torunn That is partly correct. The first ones, they are guidelines and they are guidelines for authors who want to write documents. This part, I mean, it's not compulsory for anyone to use it either. But if you want to get ISO certification, then it contains requirements. There are things you need to have in place. And what excites me so much? It is collated best practices from all over the world condensed into one document that I don't know how many hundred people have been involved, but it will be so robust, and I think it will be very useful for any organisation that want to implement plain language, even if you don't want to be certified.
Bob So if you had to make the elevator pitch to the CEO of a big company as to why this is a good thing for you to think about doing for your organization, what would you say to them?
Torunn What excites me is that it is such an achievement. People from all over the world, not only plain language experts, but its subject matter experts, designers, legal designers, etc. come together, collate all their best practices, everything they know that is good about plain language, manage to agree on something and a standard is not perfect for one person, but it's good enough for a lot. It's proven. It's evidence based and research based. And I can say, use this and you will achieve plain language in your communication and the world will become a much better place for it.
Bob The projects that you've been involved in over the journey, are you able to tell us about a policy or a project in Norway that you're particularly proud of influencing through your work?
Torunn Well, we have had a lot of highlights, but I have to say that getting plain language into legislation has been the major highlight. We were so excited. You know, this language act, our section doesn't have any teeth. We can't find anyone or put anyone to prison for writing unclearly. But still, having legislation has meant so much. It makes it so much easier for organizations and for communication experts in organizations to get management buy in, for instance. And we can't audit anyone for this section, but others can. So we've had the parliamentary Ombudsman previously for scrutiny of the public service and also the national General Auditor of Norway. They have both carried out plain language audits for certain government agencies. So having legislation means so much. and its main achievement.
Bob In my observation, people in management like measurable outcomes and outputs. When it comes to embracing plain language, do they initiate any projects that seek to measure benefits costs?
Torunn Well, we know a lot of agencies that do, believe it or not. One of our best government agencies is the tax administration, which is really an amazing achievement. They have one Plain language awards, and it's an agency that we all have to come in touch with. And I don't know if they measure financial literacy specifically, but they take that knowledge and they measure their outcomes very specifically, especially the digital services. And, you know, it's hard to measure plain language because we want plain language to be part of all processes. It's not about proofreading. In the end, it needs to be integrated into all processes in a major project, but that also makes it harder to measure. But people measure, you know, a number of telephone calls or questions sent to them, etc. so there are ways to do it. But one financial analysis company in Norway on the mission from the organization for Norwegian Municipalities, which we cooperate with very closely, they have managed to extract plain language outcomes from rewrites of two specific documents in two different municipalities in Norway, and they can now actually prove that investing in plain language will yield a return on investment of at least thirty percent to three hundred percent. And these are just the financial savings. There are the other benefits as well. You know, less frustration. It's about your reputation and all those things. They are hard to quantify.
Bob If I could just stay with the grubby topic of financial savings for one second when I was doing my reading about some Norwegian initiatives in plain language, I came across and I was fascinated by the name of this, the plain language profit calculator. What is the plain language profit calculator.
Torunn For plain language? Profit calculator is a byproduct of this report that this. Men on economics, which was Norway's leading financial analysis company, I think. But this report showed how you get the ROI of at least thirty percent. They have turned that into a calculator. And the calculator is really just an Excel sheet. But the main purpose of it is, is a tool for showing how much you could actually save. And we do know that numbers speak. So this calculator is an offer to any public agency to add their details and then see how much they can save in using plain language.
Bob We started our conversation by you being not so sure whether Norway deserves to be called the plain language poster child. I think in the last little while we've established why it perhaps does deserve that. There's an amazing amount of exciting and innovative stuff taking place.
Torunn You know, I'm Norwegian, so we are naturally humble, but we also have challenges still to overcome. So we are still taking it step by step towards our Norwegian plain language nirvana. I mean, you see other countries in the world and we learn from them. Brazil is an excellent example of innovation in plain language. So we try to be out there and, you know, sense what's going on and bring everything good back to Norway.
Bob Do you believe that plain language can be taught to everybody, or is there something innate about being a clear communicator?
Torunn Oh, oh, that's a hard one. I'm not a psychologist, but I do think that everyone can get much better with practice, with the right feedback and good examples, etc. then there are some people who have an air for rhythm and structure. So I think you can learn the core skills. You know, planning for readers, cutting noise and testing, etc. that's teachable. So yes, I think it can be taught to everyone, but it doesn't necessarily make you a clear communicator.
Bob When you are teaching. Torin. Are there any frequent flyer areas of resistance that you encounter with? Some people just are not comfortable or come up with the year butts. What about this or that won't work for this reason?
Torunn Yes. I mean, we don't have to convince as much about the idea of plain language anymore. Occasionally, yes, but, you know, when it comes down to your own text, it's different. It does hurt, doesn't it? A little bit when people work on it. So one of the things we need to emphasize strongly is that when you write for your employer or when you write for the Norwegian government, it is not your text. It's not personal. That being said, of course we get skeptics and some resistance. But that's also healthy, I think, because then you can have a real discussion about it. And we are not always right. My approach is very often to ask naive questions, and sometimes I'm wrong. But that's also interesting because it shows that it can be misinterpreted. And then I see that very often when we worked with someone for a while and discussed things properly and respectfully, the biggest skeptics become our best allies. They become the best plain language enthusiasts after a while.
Bob I've seen that many times.
Torunn Yeah.
Bob But you do have to have that respectful, supportive discussion.
Torunn Of course, that's also why working in interdisciplinary groups is the only way to go, in my opinion, because, you know, you have the subject matter experts and then you have legal experts and you have linguists, and you can get all of these discussions. I've also seen that discussions about the language or the wording of, for instance, a section in an act when we work with legislation. It sort of reveals weaknesses with the content, because if you can't really find the right wording, sometimes we have discovered that, oh, we don't actually know what it's supposed to mean, so you need to go back. So that's also happened.
Bob Oh, actually we don't really need that. As it turns out, it's just a historic relic of the way things used to be.
Torunn That happens too. Yeah.
Bob You know, remaining time. I just wanted to turn to some lighter topics, if I could. If you had to explain your job to a five year old, how would you do that?
Torunn I really hope that a five year old doesn't need to know what I do for a living. Um, I don't know. Maybe I would say that I work to make sure that the letters from the king and queen are understandable.
Bob Wonderful. What's one thing people would be surprised to learn about you? Whether it's a hidden talent or a hobby or an obsession or anything else?
Torunn Oh, I have lots of them. Um, for one week in June, I church set and I'm not available for anyone else. There is a wonderful medieval church. I'm from the west coast of Norway, outermost westernmost island, and there is a medieval church where I work as a volunteer one week in the year just to keep it open to pilgrims and other visitors, which means, you know, impromptu tours, occasionally singing a Gaelic hymn, etc. and there is no internet connection out there. So I'm not available for meetings when I church. So it's a wonderful thing to have that one week of sanctuary every year. Then, um, another thing more surprising, maybe I am an incorrigible builder of gingerbread landmarks. I've made several cathedrals, the Brandenburg Gate. So we have a new project for Christmas every year.
Bob Are these solo projects.
Torunn I know with my sister, yeah, we do that together very often churches, church buildings. But it's, uh, it's a thing to do to preserve the inner child, I think.
Bob Do you have any favorite writers in particular? Do you have any favorite Norwegian writers who and why?
Torunn I do. My favorite Norwegian author is Jon Foster, a Nobel laureate from twenty twenty three, and he's also a Nynorsk writer and he's been admired for years. He has a specific writing style that is now being copied by other authors, but it's unique. So that is the books themselves, but also getting the highest award possible for literature in the world. Or in my opinion, the Nobel also proved to the world that my language is worth the world. And having been used to fighting for your rights, it just was a statement that our language is good enough. So to all Nynorsk users in Norway and in the world, it was just a sort of a stamp of approval. So it meant, well, more than I can express that he got that award.
Bob Last couple of questions. If you could time travel, where would you go to?
Torunn Oh, well, right now I would like to go ten years ahead actually, to see where the whole AI issue and influence is taking us.
Bob Where do you think it will be taking us? Where do you think it will be taking us in the world of writing?
Torunn Um, used in the right way. It's here to stay. But I think the philosophical discussion about AI is quite interesting, because we do see how the use of AI can actually influence the language itself. So it's important to us to have Norwegian language models that, you know, agents and AI is based on, etc. but the most interesting discussions I've had lately is the question of status. In the future, will it be a status symbol to use AI, or will it be a status not to use AI because the brain is a muscle that needs to be trained, and if we leave everything to AI, we could end up not having humans left to think.
Bob I had a colleague who sent me a document last week. He said, I created this document using AI, meaning actual intelligence.
Torunn Oh that's good.
Bob I mean, it does seem already to be going in waves, doesn't it? In terms of how one values the human based, carbon based life form generated intellectual grunt, as opposed to a statistical exercise that can be remarkably high quality.
Torunn Oh, absolutely. And it's remarkable, but it's also a little bit scary, and I do hope that we find the right balance.
Bob Um, back to lightness. If you could own any artwork in the world, what would it be?
Torunn Oh, just the big beautiful house with large walls. Come with this artwork.
Bob We can negotiate that. Sure.
Torunn Oh, I want a whole collection. I think I'd like to maybe not own, but, like, for instance, the National Museum. I want to experience art with others because that is how art comes to life to me.
Bob That's a very nice sentiment. And you've put all my other interview subjects to shame because they never said that they selfishly wanted to own things. You're very noble. If you could have dinner with any writer, living or dead, who would it be?
Torunn Oh, a Jane Austen. Absolutely. I think she's the best wordsmith in all together. Genius. And just to learn more about her and how she wrote those brilliant books back then. Oh, and of course, I would go back in time and meet her at that point so I can wear the dress also.
Bob Of course. Coffee or tea while writing or perhaps something a little stronger.
Torunn Um. Well. Writing. Um, I have coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon and in the evening. It had to go with writing, you said. Um.
Bob There's something stronger comes at night time without the writing.
Torunn Well, in that case, I am a whiskey person.
Bob Final hard hitting question. Dog or cat person?
Torunn Oh, I prefer sheep because they give me wool. And I'm an enthusiastic knitter.
Bob So I thought you were going to reveal that as one of your hidden passions. Yarn relationship.
Torunn Oh, yeah. No, let's not go there. But. But with animals, as with people, you know, there are some people you like and you get along with well, and there's some not so much. And it's the same with dogs and cats and possibly also sheep. But you know, there are some dogs that I love and some that I don't like. So it's not really about dogs or cats. It's about the individuals and personal chemistry, I think.
Bob Well, it's been a fantastic discussion. It's been so impressive to hear your passion for plain language. It really comes through very clearly, not just as an exercise in democracy and the exercise of rights and an engaged public, but also, and I think this is quite particular, the issue of language preservation and the challenges of Norway in particular. It's been really, really interesting to hear from you. Thank you so much for your time today.
Torunn Oh, thank you for inviting me. I'm quite honored to be part of your podcast.
Bob It's been great having you. Thank you. I think it's fair to say that Torrent's passion for the cause of plain language and language preservation came through very, very clearly. And as an Australian, what she is doing is quite inspiring. To learn more about Torunn and her work, be sure to check out our show notes. Top of their game has been brought to you by In-Game Learning, the most fun you'll ever learn. Visit ingamelearning.com and see just how fun online plain language training can be. Today's episode has been produced and edited by Daniel Vessel. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a colleague. Leave us a review. Or better yet, rewrite something terrible and send it to us. We'd love you forever, and so might your target readers. I'm Bob Milstein, and until next time, go forth and clarify.
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