Writing English as a Second Language<\/a>.”<\/p>\nActually, writing\u2014as opposed to speaking\u2014is<\/i> a “second language.” That is why it must be learned even by native speakers.<\/p>\n
Here he is on bureaucratese\u2014and translating bureaucratese into English is something every reporter must do.<\/p>\n
First, a little history. The English language is derived from two main sources. One is Latin, the florid language of ancient Rome. The other is Anglo-Saxon, the plain languages of England and northern Europe. The words derived from Latin are the enemy\u2014they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.<\/p>\n
How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in –<\/i>ion\u2014like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllables long!)\u2014or that end in –<\/i>ent\u2014like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture\u2014somebody doing something. Here\u2019s a typical sentence: \u201cPrior to the implementation of the financial enhancement.\u201d That means \u201cBefore we fixed our money problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Believe it or not, this is the language that people in authority in America routinely use\u2014officials in government and business and education and social work and health care. They think those long Latin words make them sound important. It no longer rains in America; your TV weatherman will tell that you we\u2019re experiencing a precipitation probability situation.<\/i><\/p>\n
He almost sounds like some Norse reconstructionist Pagan bashing the “soft Mediterranean cultures” there, doesn’t he.<\/p>\n
But don’t blame the Roman Empire. Blame the writers of the 16th-19th centuries who imported Latin terms because they sounded grander and because they had all studied Latin in school.<\/p>\n
Write with Anglo-Saxon action verbs as much as possible, and your writing will be better. You can deposit that knowledge with certainty in your financial institution<\/strike> take it to the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some writing is bland because it does not take chances. Other writing is bland because of poor technique. William Zinsser deals with the second in this talk to international students in the Columbia University journalism school: “Writing English as a Second Language.” Actually, writing\u2014as opposed to speaking\u2014is a “second language.” That is why it must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-kJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":74,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=74","url_meta":{"origin":1285,"position":0},"title":"Lose Yourself Here","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 3, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"The Internet Sacred Text Archive is an amazing place. Recent additions include the complete corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry, in Old English, of course. (Time to dig out my undergraduate copy of Bright's Old English from Prof. Harper's class.) Thanks to Language Hat for the link. You were wondering if they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":145,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=145","url_meta":{"origin":1285,"position":1},"title":"A kinder, gentler Anglo-Saxon invasion?\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A kinder, gentler Anglo-Saxon invasion? New tools of DNA analysis are causing British archaeologists to rethink the idea of the Anglo-Saxon invasions that followed the collapse of Roman rule. Anyone who has imersed themselves in the Arthurian period tends to think of Anglo-Saxon versus British conflict as something resembling \"ethnic\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5768,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5768","url_meta":{"origin":1285,"position":2},"title":"Heathenry and the Politics of Postcolonialism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 27, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Thad Horrell, Heathen and graduate student, hurls himself against the issue of post-colonialism and reconstructed Northern religion in this article, \"Heathenry as a Postcolonial Movement,\" published in the online Journal of Religion, Identity and Politics,\u00a0written by students in his PhD program. His thesis is \"that Heathenry is 'postcolonial'\u00a0 in complex\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=998","url_meta":{"origin":1285,"position":3},"title":"DNA, the Celts, and Roman Britain","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I have started reading Stephen Oppenheimer's The Origins of the British, which I referenced earlier in my series of \"Who's a Celt Now?\" posts.From a genetic analysis -- his main tool -- buttressed by linguistic studies and ancient written sources, he appears to be making these points:The people of Ireland,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1845294823","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12617,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12617","url_meta":{"origin":1285,"position":4},"title":"“W\u00e6lcyrge or Witchcraft: Identifying Heathendom in late Anglo-Danish England”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"? Just one of many presentations from the just-finished online conference\u00a0 Performing Magic in the pre-Modern North. Here, Ross Downing deals with such issues as whether witchcraft and Heathenry were defined differently in the time of King Alfred the Great in the late 9th century, including details as the execution\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Anglo-Saxon England\"","block_context":{"text":"Anglo-Saxon England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anglo-saxon-england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4304","url_meta":{"origin":1285,"position":5},"title":"Pictish Writing Discovered?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Some researchers now think that decorative carvings on Pictish memorial stones in Scotland may actually represent a form of writing. The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}