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How to Write in Plain English

plainenglish.co.uk

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Re: How to Write in Plain English

#121

Post by srg0 »

How to write rich text English:

1) The writer should make a conscious effort to keep his or her sentences as long as possible; just one word: the flow; some shorter sentences can be juxtaposed, periods replaced with comas or semicolons; the abundance of adjectives and adjective phrases never hurt --

2) The passive voice has to be chosen whenever possible; safer, less offensive, less responsible language is the enabler

3) Possessive determiners are to be preferred over personal pronouns, the passive voice is based on their liberal use

4) Thesaurus is considered by some to be essential for richer and more subtle communication, word substitutions refine the ideas being conveyed to the reader --

-- the reader should be never explicitly solicited to do anything -- he or she should be free-willed into doing

6) Consideration of these dos and donts will likely unleash also the power of nominalization; nominalized verbs put action first

*) Bullet lists are the standard punctuation;

/s

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#123

Post by daffy »

nabla9 wrote: post #76
ralphstodomingo wrote: post #39

I'm curious. Is there a specific reason why the trend for our use of the English language went towards this direction, when in the past, a lot of the historical material I read seemed intentionally verbose? Sure, it's all for ensuring we are understood better among ourselves, but I wonder if writing this way makes us cognitively simpler.

Plain English should not be confused with low literacy level. Plain English is a style that is hard to master. Only 12% of U.S. adults reach the highest PIAAC literacy proficiency levels. "unnecessary verbosity" is just one way to express your position in the society. Wearing impractical clothes, complex etiquette, having pale skin and speaking in certain manner was something that requires either wealth or practise.…

It is also possible that certain styles of writing and clothing are felt by some to be more beautiful. It is not necessary to reduce every stylistic predilection to status or identity signalling.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#124

Post by ThePadawan »

dgellow wrote: post #85
nicbou wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't make your readers hold parts of the sentence in their head. Reorder or split sentences until it can be avoided. In other words, use a really small buffer. "You must fill form 331 unless you are over 60 years old, in which case you must fill form 445." "You must fill form 331. If you are over 60 years old, you must fill 445 instead." "If you are over 60 years old, you must fill form 445. Otherwise, you must fill…

> Don't make your readers hold parts of the sentence in their head. Funny to read this as I'm learning German! In German the main verb of a sentence has to be at the end depending on the context (e.g: if it is a question, or following some prepositions such as "dass"). Let's say we want to build a question, it will be constructed this way: 1. question marker (such as "Was", "Wo", "Warum", etc) 2. subject 3. other det…

I had a Brazilian roommate who could second this. He (jokingly) complained this was the absolute worst when dealing with split-proposition-verbs:

E. g. "aufgeben" translated part-by-part is "upgive", so "to surrender" or "to give up" in English.

However, in sth. like 3rd position singular, the form would be "er gibt auf" ("he gives up"). But in German, the object goes between "gives" and "up".

Thus, my roommate mentioned a sentence like "Der Präsident gibt sein Versprechen zur Verbesserung der Arbeitslosigkeitsquote auf" (The President gives up his promise about improving unemploymemt rates).

So yeah, parsing German sometimes results a pause while everyone unwinds their stack.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#125

Post by amadeuspagel »

> Use lists where appropriate

This is so important. How many essays are basically a list of unrelated arguments, but not presented as a list?

Things lists make easier:

- Refer to specific points.

- Skip a point you already understand.

Even as I write this, I had to remind myself to express it as a list, rather then a long-winded sentence, which I probably wouldn't have if I weren't writing specifically to advocate lists. It's so deeply ingrained by years of english classes to hide the structure of the text with clauses such as "furthermore". I even remember being supposed to learn a list of such clauses.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#126

Post by paulnechifor »

> whilst (while)

I'm not a native English speaker, but I find it funny how Americans often consider English spellings wrong.

I wonder if American Hispanics do the same for Spaniards:

> Ahem, it's pronounced "ustedes", not "vosotros". That's not a word.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#127

Post by zeveb »

DrBazza wrote: post #56

English vs. business English. Pre-boarding is just boarding. Pre-booking is just booking. Pre-prefixing everything. Sigh. "Please revert" - you mean 'reply', not 'return to a former state'. "Ping me" - ugh. And my favourite.... "Learnings" - you mean lessons. "What drivings have you been on?" ... "What journeys have you been on?"

I don't mind 'ping me': that one has a clear reference to submarines and networks.

What bothers me are 'ask' and 'lift' used as nouns. They add nothing to the language, and are just ugly. Maybe my father felt the same the first time he heard 'sweet' to mean 'cool.'

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#128

Post by rswail »

gorgoiler wrote: post #2

Writing clearly is like playing Tetris. Sentences should be presented with clauses that drop down and slot together efficiently. At the earliest available opportunity you drop in a block that completes the line and points are won/made. This can also make for rather dull writing and I appreciate the irony in this paragraph: > However, at first you may still find yourself writing the odd long sentence, especially when…

Can I say that this is an excellent piece of writing, the tension at the end of the second last paragraph was only finally relieved by the final sentence.

Kudos!

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#130

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

paulnechifor wrote: post #126

> whilst (while) I'm not a native English speaker, but I find it funny how Americans often consider English spellings wrong. I wonder if American Hispanics do the same for Spaniards: > Ahem, it's pronounced "ustedes", not "vosotros". That's not a word.

> Ahem, it's pronounced "ustedes", not "vosotros". That's not a word.

As someone who learned Spanish in Spain, I have occasionally been "corrected" by South Americans when using vosotros. Of course, no one denies that vosotros is a word, but I have been told something along the lines of "There are X Spanish-speaking countries in the world, and only one says vosotros, so please, stop doing that and talk like us instead." South Americans with this hangup are a small minority, of course, but they definitely exist.

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