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How to Write in Plain English

plainenglish.co.uk

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Re: How to Write in Plain English

#291

Post by nullgeo »

jhpriestley wrote: post #252

It is not only the sheer pleasure of reading language used to its utmost, an indulgence found in the enduring literary accomplishments of Shakespeare or Dickens but somewhat lacking in the trendier, reportorial style of a Hemingway (who, after a hundred years, it seems safe to say has not reached the same level of immortal acclaim), but also if I may venture, a particular suitability to the kind of digressive, meande…

This is a peak pretentious HN comment that gives HN its infamy.

It is a pleasure to read that style in literary works, but in your day to day life is that how you want to communicate with people? I think that's what the linked article is talking about, how to use plain English for communication.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#292

Post by ajarmst »

williamsmj wrote: post #288

The Plain English Campaign is not a useful authority on English usage. They are a group of prigs and pedants who issue press releases about alleged errors by famous people in the hope they will receive coverage in the British press and bring in work for their consulting business. I'm distressed to learn they now expound at book length and I'm surprised to see this garbage taken seriously by HN. See, e.g. http://itre.…

One problem with plain writing using simple sentence structure, common words and conversational grammar is that it's boring. It has its place: technical writing where facts need to be presented completely and unambiguously as well as writing for non-native speakers are two examples. However, if your goal is to educate, entertain, convince, communicate with passion, or simply express yourself in a way that permits subtlety or complexity, then it's tremendously constraining---and even more boring to write than it is to read.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#294

Post by ThePadawan »

c22 wrote: post #255
ThePadawan wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Was ist der Unterschied zwischen einem Raben und einem Schreibtisch"? As you mention, it gets even screwier given the opportunity to put a "nicht" (not) at the very end of a sentence to lead listeners down a garden path.

You can do the same thing in English but it's pretty obnoxious.

Yes, but the grammar doesn't lend itself to it quite as nicely (any more, compared to earlier forms of English, IIRC).

In German, the word order "I believe you not" is the proper way to phrase that sentiment, without being pithy about it.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#295

Post by StavrosK »

ggggtez wrote: post #284
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…

The last one is only good if you actually read it. I might end up seeing the first clause, assuming the entire line is irrelevant, and moving on without seeing the "Otherwise". Prefer declarative statements: "If you are 60 or older, you must fill form 445. If you are 59 or younger, you must fill form 331."

But I can't short-circuit those, so I have to read all of them just in case multiple apply.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#297

Post by hi41 »

bonoboTP wrote: post #271
segmondy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While obviously everyone's native tongue seems the most expressive to them, I can't shake off the feeling that written (and often even spoken) English is just lacking a lot of the nuance and expressiveness of other languages. It's just more factual and dry and lacks a lot of implied texture, even after having learned and used it for decades. (But perhaps I'm just still not advanced enough to notice it.) For example i…

That is so cool. I speak indian languages such as Tamil and Hindi. I am not aware of such a usage that you are referring to. Can you give me an example? I am not able understand how word order makes clear the word that the speaker wants to emphasize. Is it peculiar to Hungarian?

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#298

Post by macando »

From Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft:

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.

I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, mostly fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read. It’s what I do at night, kicked back in my blue chair. Similarly, I don’t read fiction to study the art of fiction, but simply because I like stories. Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones"

Can't recommend enough this book. Peek inside the mind of the master of writing in Plain English and one of the greatest modern storytellers. For me one of the best non-fiction books out there. Wish more artists produced something like this.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#299

Post by gjm11 »

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…

Trying to rewrite that sentence so it's comprehensible is an interesting exercise. How about this?

(I don't know anything about Vulkan, and there is some ambiguity in the quoted sentence, so I've given a few different versions with different meanings. Note that the ambiguity is not necessarily a flaw in the quoted sentence -- it may be perfectly unambiguous, albeit very unclear, to anyone with any knowledge of Vulkan.)

If a device is lost, the subresources of some images on other logical devices may have their layout become VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED. This happens if the VkDeviceMemory object to which the image is bound is associated with the same underlying memory resources as an external memory object on the lost device.

... or, if an image isn't necessarily bound to exactly one VkDeviceMemory object, ...

If a device is lost, the subresources of some images on other logical devices may have their layouts become VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED. This happens if the image is bound to a VkDeviceMemory object which is associated with the same underlying memory resources as an external memory object on the lost device.

... or, if it's the other logical device bound to a VkDeviceMemory object rather than the image:

If a device is lost, the subresources of images on other logical devices may have their layouts become VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED. This happens if the other device is bound to a VkDeviceMemory object which is associated with the same underlying memory resources as an external memory object on the lost device.

Or maybe a slightly different structure. "If a device is lost, and some VkDeviceMemory object is associated with hte same underlying memory resources as an external memory object on that lost device, then all subresources of any image bound to that VkDeviceMemory object have their layout set to VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED."

But I can't help thinking that this really wants a diagram. Nodes for the logical devices, the images, the VkDeviceMemory object, the "underlying memory resources", the external memory object. Labelled arrows for relationships like "bound to", "has as underlying memory resource", "is a subresource of", etc.

And it seems as if this business of "having your layout set to VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED" deserves a name. (Naming things is a powerful general technique for reducing cognitive stack overflows.)

"Under some circumstances, the memory resources associated with an image may be invalidated, in which case all subresources of the image will have layout VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_INVALIDATED and [explain here the consequences of that]. In this case, the image is said to be layout-invalidated. " ... And then later, when talking about lost devices, you say "If a device is lost, images on other logical devices may be layout-invalidated. This happens when the image is bound to a VkDeviceMemory object, and that object is associated with the same underlying memory resources as an external memory object on the lost device."

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#300

Post by samatman »

Joker_vD wrote: post #182
ThePadawan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, English too has some interesting ideas where to put prepositions in the sentence, that is, turn them basically into postpositions. For example, "Which basket did you put that exquisite marble figurine in?" The "in" is logically related to "which basket", so one would expect that the question would actually be *"In which basket...", but nope, that's rustic and colloquial at best. I suspect it's because of the wo…

This is the type of errant sentence up with which I will not put.
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