In other words, the Official Style is Academic (formal) English that has become so complex that it is opaque and unhelpful or just tedious and uninteresting. You might also consider the humorous take on the Gunning fog index, which describes reading level 20 as something “only government sites can get away with this because you can’t ignore them” and reading level 30 as when “the government IS covering something up.” Sometimes this obfuscation of meaning can be negatively referred to as Double Speak, which was coined by George Orwell.

   

​Making certain information less obvious or attempting to hide responsibility is certainly one reason the official style exists; however, it also exists because more words suggest more time spent at writing and more time writing means more work for people who have to justify their jobs. The most significant reason for its existence though is simply intellectual laziness. Good, clear prose is hard work. If you disagree, then you should get busy making money on your own writing. ​

​  ​

Corporate Jargon generally follows the official style but is more euphemistic with its use of positive but empty power words rather than syntactical complexity. Consider an example from Netflix, which essentially says “sharing passwords costs us money, so we will charge more to do it.”

​ 

"Casual credentials sharing is becoming too expensive to ignore. Our new solution gives operators the ability to take action. Many casual users will be happy to pay an additional fee for a premium, shared service with a greater number of concurrent users. It's a great way to keep honest people honest while benefiting from an incremental revenue stream."

​

While the problem exists in academia and government, in business it has had such a negative effect on shareholder confidence that the SEC published a style guide.

​