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

251–260 of 327 posts

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#251

Post by ativzzz »

motohagiography wrote: post #157
zeckalpha wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“this is a relief to read” -> “reading this relieved me” Perhaps passive voice isn’t as annoying to you as you claim. There is a difference between writing passively and using passive voice.

Hah, indeed. I'd say the passive voice is a common a tool for patronizing people, and too much tolerance for it is bad for an organization.

> and too much tolerance for it is bad for an organization

Passive again! "An organization tolerating it too much is bad" is active :)

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#252

Post by jhpriestley »

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, meandering, rich and nuanced thought, a precious and valuable part of human intellect, a rich roast which loses much of its savor when cut into bite-sized chunks, which recommends, contra all the style advice of today's factory-line English departments, an appreciation and a space for the continuation of the English of Milton and Gibbons and Melville as against the simplified, utilitarian style recommended in the fine article.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#253

Post by c22 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #244
nicky0 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In which basket did you put that exquisite marble figurine?" is perfectly good English. It sounds better to me that the "which ... in" version. (British English speaker.)

To my ears, a slight improvement to this would be to use the word "Into" instead of "In": "Into which basket did you put that exquisite marble figurine?"

Or within which, with which, yields a pleasant alliteration.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#255

Post by c22 »

ThePadawan wrote: post #176
dgellow wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

"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.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#256

Post by cringepirate »

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 is normally used as marketing term. There are other alternatives that don't stink of bullshit like such as allow.

TBH in the example given the above should simply be:

> A language for building reliable and efficient software.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#257

Post by garaetjjte »

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…

>An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam--that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses, making pens with pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it--AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb--merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out--the writer shovels in "HABEN SIND GEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN," or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a man's signature--not necessary, but pretty. German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head--so as to reverse the construction--but I think that to learn to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a foreigner.

https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#258

Post by MaxBarraclough »

nicbou wrote: post #155
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

It still requires a fairly large buffer. It could be improved with some punctuation. A prime number is a natural number that is greater than 1, and not a product of two smaller numbers. Commas let you catch your breath and flush the buffer. When there are two many commas, I use a bullet list.

My point was there's an additional anti-pattern at play. As the reader progresses through a sentence, they shouldn't have to mentally cross out previously made categorical claims. This isn't quite the same thing as the stack overflow problem.

I'm afraid I don't see your rephrasing as an improvement. It doesn't substantially restructure the sentence, and to someone familiar with the mathematical writing style, it reads less naturally.

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#259

Post by not2b »

stared wrote: post #232
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…

I think you gave a good reason why passive voice is preferred in some situations. To me (I am not a native speaker), the default emphasis is on the first words: The police stopped the riot. -> emphasis on the police The riot was stopped by the police. -> emphasis on the riot It coincides with the examples in which passive voice is recommended. > To make something less hostile - 'this bill has not been paid' (passive)…

The overwhelming reason why bureaucrats (either those in government or in corporate middle management) love the passive voice is "to avoid taking the blame" (or to avoid appearing to blame someone powerful).

Re: How to Write in Plain English

#260

Post by radeklew »

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…

Reminds me of this excellent sentence of Hofstadter's, on the concept of treating language as a stack composed of clauses and popped by verbs:

"The proverbial German phenomenon of the 'verb-at-the-end', about which droll tales of absentminded professors who would begin a sentence, ramble on for an entire lecture, and then finish up by rattling off a string of verbs by which their audience, for whom the stack had long since lost its coherence, would be totally nunplussed, are told, is an excellent example of linguistic pushing and popping."

Post reply on HN