Bad English helps Gere secure award

He is a Hollywood superstar, women adore him and he has millions in the bank. Surely Richard Gere has it all?

Not quite, according to the Plain English Campaign. The star of Pretty Woman, An Officer And A Gentleman and Unfaithful lacks one vital skill - the ability to speak clearly.

Now he has been honoured with the 2002 Foot In Mouth award, given for the most "truly baffling quote" of the year: "I know what I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I'd think 'No, actually I am a giraffe'."

Winners of the booby prize Golden Bulls for breathtaking gobbledygook include Halifax General Insurance Services Ltd, for this pithy line from a letter: "I can confirm that you have not inform us a conservatory that has never been built and that you have not been charged any extra for one built."

The awards, presented tomorrow, acknowledge good English as well as bad. Organisations honoured with Plain English awards for publishing comprehensible documents include the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Ministry of Defence.

Past Foot In Mouth winners include Glenn Hoddle in 1999, thanks to this attempt to explain his controversial comments about the disabled: "At this moment in time, if that changes in years to come I don't know but what happens here today and changes as we go along that is part of life's learning and part of your inner beliefs."

Actress Alicia Silverstone took the award the year after, with an insightful description of her film Clueless.

She said: "Clueless was very deep. It was deep in the way it was very light. Lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness."

And last year the winner was artist Tracey Emin, for her observation: "When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in terms of art - and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique."

A spokesman for the Plain English Campaign said today: "Our awards are light-hearted, but there is a serious message. Needlessly complicated writing robs people of their right to make an informed decision.

"Few would have the arrogance to use such overblown language when they spoke to somebody, so there is no reason to do so in writing."

Other Golden Bull winners this year include:

A document for a bricklaying National Vocational Qualification, describing the act of laying a brick: "To install a component into the structural fabric."

A mission statement by web design firm anadrom ltd: "Please browse the site to see our full range of services ... and remember touch base as you think about the red tape outside of the box ..."

A label on Waitrose mushrooms: "Mushrooms cultivated on substrate from extensive agriculture which is permitted in organic farming during a transitional period."