Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Write in Plain English

plainenglish.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 327 posts

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#201

Post by defen »

secondcoming wrote: post #166
throwawaylolx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how they banned "empower" with no added explanation while the Rust team was bending backwards to argue that there is nothing wrong with the word when, in 2018, they controversially changed their motto to "A language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software." ( https://rust-lang.org/ ) Obviously gov.uk material is of a different nature than that of a corporate motto, but it speaks to the exa…

What's wrong with 'empower'?

It’s one of those words that used to have a different meaning but then a bunch of people started using it “wrong”, which is annoying to some people. It used to connote a legal or other official authority to do something.

Kinda like how some people don’t like hearing that their plane will be taking off “momentarily” or when people use “begs the question” to mean “raises the question”

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#202

Post by sah2ed »

rimliu wrote: post #134
nicbou wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

Essentially, yes.

Using words most people are familiar with will afford a lot of people nearly instantaneous cognition [0] of the information you are trying to convey with your writing.

This applies to both ends of the reading spectrum: highly educated people who do a lot of reading than most; and poorly educated people who probably had to drop out of school to make ends meet.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#203

Post by szszrk »

segmondy wrote: post #183
aazaa wrote: post #148

The article doesn't mention the way that word placement changes the meaning of sentences. From a video I recently saw but can't recall, consider these sentences: - Although John is a nice guy, he beats his dog. - Although John beats his dog, he's a nice guy. - John is a nice guy, but he beats his dog. - John beats his dog, but he's a nice guy. These are all plain English sentences, but will be interpreted quite diffe…

Pronunciation changes meaning too. "i didn't say he stole the money." this doesn't say much, but when a word is stressed takes on a new meaning, so one should be careful to capture the stress in writing. I didn't say he stole the money. - someone else said it, not me i DIDN'T say he stole the money. - you think I said it, it wasn't me. i didn't SAY he stole the money. - I never said such a thing, might have suggested…

I always find it weird that English texts and speach tend to emphasis different word in sentence that I am used to in my mother tongue. In Polish it's simple, just like in your example, the word that is in bold is the one you are trying to get attention to.

But in practice I hear often in English media and books something completely else, where a word next to it has the accent/emphasis, not the one that is CLEARLY arising from context.

I tried to consult that with local English teachers and people coaching others in communication in that language, but they just had no idea what I am talking about.

In your example it would be: "i didn't SAY he stole the money" when it's perfectly clear from context that the person denies such situation ever had place and was not involved in it in any way.

In TV it's just weird, but maybe I'm dumb, or person speaking is weird. But in books it's stated with bold font or ">" and the context is clear. I saw that espacially in books from 1940-1970, modern reeditions from UK and US have all those bold text left intact.

Very awkward for a non native speaker.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#204

Post by zoomablemind »

ht_th wrote: post #146
t_akosuke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

someone could write a simple grammar checker that looks for words in that list, passive voices, sentence length and whatnot and suggests alternatives. It wouldn't work without human oversight but then again, no automated checker really does.

I use https://languagetool.org/ for that. I have integrated this Java program in Vim as well. Every time I think I finished a piece of write, I run the ":LanguageToolCheck" command to learn that my writing still leaves a lot to be desired.

Is the Java tool directly connecting to the site for the checks or it uses some kind of local database? Is it updatable?

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#205

Post by inopinatus »

wlll wrote: post #170
aazaa wrote: post #148

The article doesn't mention the way that word placement changes the meaning of sentences. From a video I recently saw but can't recall, consider these sentences: - Although John is a nice guy, he beats his dog. - Although John beats his dog, he's a nice guy. - John is a nice guy, but he beats his dog. - John beats his dog, but he's a nice guy. These are all plain English sentences, but will be interpreted quite diffe…

I'm struggling to read those as being different. UK English reader.

I had the same response as you. I’ve come to accept that not everyone’s brain is wired the same.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#206

Post by patentatt »

SagelyGuru wrote: post #154

Am I the only one who finds The List of Words to Avoid rather depressing? I mean I get what they are trying to do: minimise the number of letters. Yet, language is also about variety and not being really, really dull. Perhaps also about not treating your readers like idiots? Most of those slightly longer words look like perfectly legitimate alternatives in that regard.

Poetry can be about not being dull, business communication should be dull.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#207

Post by docent8 »

This guide makes excellent points. I also recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Style-Clarity-Chicago-Writing-Publish...

He says that to achieve clarity, imagine the subject of each sentence as the character of a scene, and the verb as its action. Make sure you hit both character and action within the first 6-10 words of your sentence.

Begin each sentence with information that the reader is familiar with, and end it with the new information you want to introduce.

That will get you a long way toward creating understanding (and feeling) in the reader.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#208

Post by Dirlewanger »

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.

This is especially true for late 1700s English, specifically around the time of America's founding. The entirety of the Federalist Papers could be reduced to a fraction of their original lengths with plain English without losing any of context.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#209

Post by kwoff »

omnicognate wrote: post #46
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…

Overflowing that buffer really does feel like a stack overflow, too. Your whole mental state just suddenly disappears in a puff of smoke. This resplendent sentence in the Vulkan spec did it to me the other day: The layout of subresources of images on other logical devices that are bound to VkDeviceMemory objects associated with the same underlying memory resources as external memory objects on the lost device becomes…

We have a small number of "slots" of short term memory. I wonder how smart we'd be if we had twice as many slots.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#210

Post by greentimer »

"Most experts would agree that clear writing should have an average sentence length of 15 to 20 words."

This quote is so preposterous it almost made me want to stop reading the article. Different types of writing should have different sentence lengths. I'm quite sure the sentence length for a math textbook and a Clorox ad should be different. There's a reason it's not common practice to measure one's average sentence lengths.

Like most material written on language, this article says almost nothing and is basically filler. "Don't be afraid to give instructions". "Use lists where appropriate". Well of course we know we can give instructions! I recently read a famous book called "How to Read a Book" that in a similar vein struggled to find anything non-obvious to say about language. It just comes so naturally to people that it's difficult to comment on. This article is coming from an organization called the Plain English Campaign that's been around since 1979. I wonder what they can have claimed to have accomplished since then.

This article reminded me of arguments I always read in philosophy about tough subjects like radical skepticism where the authors fail to make any points beyond the obvious. Sure, certain knowledge is impossible for humans to attain, but can you say anything else!?

Post reply on HN