The British government has advised its employees to refrain from the word ‘Brexit’ in official communication and to replace it with the exact date of when the UK left the EU. On social media, the directive was criticized.
“You can use the term ‘Brexit’ to provide historical context, but it’s better to use specific dates where possible,” reads the official style guide which “Covers style, grammar and spelling conventions” for all content published on the government’s website.
The guidance, which was updated on December 8 but went largely unnoticed by the media upon release, recommends using “31.12.2020” instead of “Brexit” or “The UK’s exit from the EU”. It also advises to avoid the expressions “During the transition phase” and “After the transition period” by replacing them with “31.12.2020” and “After January 20, 2021,” respectively.
This guidance along with another similar initiative by the Welsh government has caused a lot of irritation among Brits, some even posting their anger on social media.
“Whitehall has vowed to remove Brexit from its political lexicon. Officialdom is a victim to Quasi Stalinist Semantic Engineering.” one of the users tweeted, with another noting that “successful projects don’t usually need to have their names removed from official usage”
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