Plain words

One of the games JD and I play to get through long shifts in the engine room involves translating the high-falutin' phrases some of our charges inflict on us into plain English.

Today, for example, I was presented with "higher levels of inventory".

JD being away from his desk, I tried it on our art editor, who immediately (and in my view correctly) replied "more stock". If an artist can translate waffle into English, why does it seem to be beyond some professional writers?

I fear JD is right when he warns me I'm becoming embittered!

Protective nuances

In a recent post I mentioned that the subtleties of the English language do at least make it hard for scam artists who do not have English as a first language to rip us off via emails. And no sooner had I posted the blog than an email sneaked past the company's spam filter from "Mr Steven Kenneth".

Mistake number one: who uses the Mr in this context?

What follows is the usual appeal to the recipient's greed: in this case 45% of "a huge amount" in return for no more than my bank account details. But Mr Steven Kenneth describes himself as "a senior staff with a bank in Scotland, UK". Clearly you can't be a senior staff – but neither would you say, or write, "Scotland, UK". It's not wrong, it's just... wrong.

There's more of the same and you might argue that anyone who falls for such a sloppy scam deserves to be ripped off. But thank goodness these emails are so poorly written. And in case any overseas conmen are interested, JD and I might be tempted to reword your emails, just as an intellectual exercise you understand.

Simply send us your bank details and we'll get back to you. Honest.

English as she is spoke

Ploughing though yet another feature earlier today I came across the phrase "this highlighted the problem" and left it, highlighted being the correct past tense of highlight. Yet lit is the past tense of light. Similarly, the past tense of hang is hung, unless you are being hanged by the neck until you are dead.

English has so many foibles of this kind that it must be a nightmare to learn as a foreign language, but I have found one advantage of this.

Now and again dodgy emails sneak past the company firewall, telling me of the vast riches awaiting me if I will only supply my bank account details. Some of them are virtually gibberish – the mind boggles at the thought of anyone taking them seriously. But even the best of them, while perfectly understandable, strike false notes here and there. They use words that aren't actually wrong; they're simply not the words a native english speaker would use.

So if you're learning english as a second language and are struggling with what are, after all, trivial points of style and vocabulary, take heart from the fact that this sometimes irritating language can serve as a remarkably effective security device.

Keep it simple

In a report on a company closure I came across the phrase: "approximately 81 positions were lost". Obviously "approximately" doesn't belong next to 81 so I changed it to "approximately 80". Then I thought for a moment and changed the phrase to "about 80 jobs were lost".

Why do some writers instinctively assume that longer words are somehow better?