As a follow up to my previous post, i managed to get some real life examples from the Plain English website.These are actual statements made by different entities in the UK. The "Before" is how it appears and the "after"is once it has been deciphered.
Before
High-quality learning environments are a necessary precondition for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process.
After
Children need good schools if they are to learn properly.
(Although the 'Before' paragraph does not mention it, the situation does involve schoolchildren.)
Before
If there are any points on which you require explanation or further particulars we shall be glad to furnish such additional details as may be required by telephone.
After
If you have any questions, please ring.
Before
It is important that you shall read the notes, advice and information detailed opposite then complete the form overleaf (all sections) prior to its immediate return to the Council by way of the envelope provided.
After
Please read the notes opposite before you fill in the form. Then send it back to us as soon as possible in the envelope provided.
Before
Your enquiry about the use of the entrance area at the library for the purpose of displaying posters and leaflets about Welfare and Supplementary Benefit rights, gives rise to the question of the provenance and authoritativeness of the material to be displayed. Posters and leaflets issued by the Central Office of Information, the Department of Health and Social Security and other authoritative bodies are usually displayed in libraries, but items of a disputatious or polemic kind, whilst not necessarily excluded, are considered individually.
After
Thank you for your letter asking permission to put up posters in the entrance area of the library. Before we can give you an answer we will need to see a copy of the posters to make sure they won't offend anyone.
Great to see that some people are paid by the word eh?
Anyway. My last post showed you how to expand your sentences for a truly mind numbing effect. Today, i managed to find a very funny list of pointers on writing.
They made me smile anyway. If you need me to explain any of them please dont hesitate to not contact me.
The path to better writing (from somewhere else on the web)
1. Always avoid alliteration.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague—they're old hat.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
8. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
9. Contractions aren't necessary.
10. Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
11. One should never generalize.
12. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
13. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
14. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
15. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
16. Avoid archaeic spellings too.
17. Understatement is always best.
18. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
19. One-word sentences? Eliminate. Always!
20. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
21. The passive voice should not be used.
22. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
24. Don't use commas, that, are not, necessary.
25. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
26. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
27. Subject and verb always has to agree.
28. Be more or less specific.
29. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
30. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
31. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
32. Don't be redundant.
33. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
34. Don't never use no double negatives.
35. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
36. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
37. Eschew obfuscation.
38. No sentence fragments.
39. Don't indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
40. A writer must not shift your point of view.
41. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
42. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
43. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
44. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
45. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
46. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
47. Always pick on the correct idiom.
48. The adverb always follows the verb.
49. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
50. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
51. And always be sure to finish what
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