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How to Write in Plain English

plainenglish.co.uk

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Re: How to Write in Plain English

#131

Post by MaxBarraclough »

brain5ide wrote: post #119
darkerside wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why second drafts exist

We had this joke. A meeting of faculty heads is taking place. The topic - funding. The chairman says: "Hey, physicists, why are you so expensive? You need all those gadgets and materials to perform your experiments. Look at the mathematicians. All they need to produce a research paper are a box of paper, a box of pencils, and a trash can." "We don't even need trash cans, sir." announces the dean of Philosophy.

I guess they have an equivalent repository with roughly the same impact factor.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#133

Post by dgellow »

ThePadawan wrote: post #124
dgellow wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 menti…

I have in mind an idea for a movie scenario where someone important is on their death bed and says their last words, and nobody can tell what they actually meant because it may be missing the second part of the verb, resulting in a potentially completely different meaning :)

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#134

Post by rimliu »

nicbou wrote: post #42
dan-robertson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying the reason is “accessibility” suggests that it only helps people with poor literacy. There are two things to note: 1. Most people writing content will assume that their readers are like themselves or their social circle and will therefore have good literacy skills. However the actual proportion of people with poor (or even just not high) literacy skills is much higher than you might estimate from your social c…

You must also consider people who are not native speakers. I'm sometimes appalled by the complexity of the letters I get in Germany, especially when they are related to immigration.

So, the solution is to dumb everything down to the least common denominator?

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#135

Post by cprecioso »

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.

Spanish spellings are quite standardized around the world, the “language academies” of each country collaborate together. Moreover Spanish writing is phonetic so there’s only really one way to pronounce a written word.

On the other hand, in Spain we’re famous for “cecear”, that is to pronounce “c” as the z in zombie; while in the rest of Latin America the pronounce it more like an s.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#136

Post by tjpnz »

As someone working with software engineers for which English is not a first language I cannot emphasise the importance of this enough. I've spent the last year or so consciously working on my writing and it's really paid off - especially given the current situation.

Never assume anything about your audience's understanding. Break everything down into short, concise sentences. If you're attempting to get across a non-trivial concept avoid the temptation to use big words - even if you end up having to write more. When you're done take another pass and see if you can simplify things further.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#137

Post by MaxBarraclough »

nicbou wrote: post #38
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…

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…

The worst of the three versions you've given is the second, as it makes use of a sentence which, taken on its own, is a lie.

It's poor writing to state a mistruth and then whittle away at it until you arrive at the truth. Far better to build up truth upon truth until you arrive at the full picture.

Bad:

A natural number greater than 1 cannot be expressed as the product of two smaller natural numbers, if it is prime.

Good:

A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. (Stolen from Wikipedia.)

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#138

Post by rimliu »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #36
paulpauper wrote: post #24

Longer sentences are better and more efficient for conveying content when used appropriately. Short sentences mean you have to use too many conjunctions and other filler. Use whatever style you think will be the most effective for readers.

I think there are two kinds of long sentences. One just keeps adding detail. It's essentially a list. Breaking it up into multiple sentences would require a lot of unnecessary conjunctions as you say. The other kind of long sentence forces you to keep a lot in your head until the meaning is finally resolved at the very end. That's the kind of sentence that should be broken up because it creates unnecessary mental bur…

It may also create necessary mental burden. I think too much has been considered "unnecessary mental burden" recently, including education.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#139

Post by [deleted] »

rimliu wrote: post #138
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two kinds of long sentences. One just keeps adding detail. It's essentially a list. Breaking it up into multiple sentences would require a lot of unnecessary conjunctions as you say. The other kind of long sentence forces you to keep a lot in your head until the meaning is finally resolved at the very end. That's the kind of sentence that should be broken up because it creates unnecessary mental bur…

It may also create necessary mental burden. I think too much has been considered "unnecessary mental burden" recently, including education.

[deleted]

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#140

Post by rimliu »

throwanem wrote: post #71
k__ wrote: post #68

Reminds me of Wikipedia's "simple English" approach. I think the difference is, that simple or basic English only uses the 1000 most common words.

You might not know it, but "thousand" is not one of the ten hundred most usual English words! https://github.com/aaron-em/ten-hundred-mode.el

I think this is English specific and could do more harm than good for someone with a different background. E.g. in my language counting anything > 1000 in hundreds would sound very weird.
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