[Symbiote]

Many documents and websites produced by government in the UK have the "Crystal Mark for Plain English". Details at [1].

I don't notice the difference, but non-natives have occasionally said they've been surprised when certain information is clear, such as letters from a bank.

[1] http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/services/crystal-mark.html

[anexprogrammer]

You probably would have noticed the difference in the 80s and 90s when banks and others still wrote in tortuous, horrifically formal, English. Why take two sentences when a page and a half would do?

Usually the only places you still regularly saw "inst", notwithstanding and heretofore. If you wanted to understand at first reading being a contract lawyer helped.

The Plain English Campaign took out most of the low hanging fruit years back.