This follows on from Clarity, but I am putting it in a separate entry for once.

The EU translation service has an initiative called Fight the Fog, trying to encourage the writing of comprehensible documents. I must admit that although I’ve enjoyed listening to Emma Wagner talking about this, I have never found any direct help from it for myself. They do have a very nice list called Le mot juste, of French words often mistranslated in EU usage.Take acquis communautaire. The BBC defines it, and here is a whole page on the EU website headed Acquis of the European Union in the Field of Justice and Home affairs. The Fight the Fog pages say it should be translated as ‘body of EU law’.

The site also has a Fog Fighting Corner, with extracts from a regular column in the staff magazine where particularly horrific examples of legalese are quoted together with readers’ suggested improvements.