jadesfire

I think it's one of those 50/50 things. Sometimes people writing documents *do* use Latin just to show off, but often it's because the Latin says it more succinctly. And there's a strong argument for saying that if you only aim the reading level at age 12, people will never progress beyond that. But things *should* be written in plain English where possible. I tend to go for the "use it, explain it the first time, then go on using it" approach, but I can understand councils with high numbers of non-English speakers wanting to cut back. The problem comes in drawing the line between 'cutting back' and 'eliminating', which I think is where these things tend to go wrong.

*climbs off soapbox*

(*g* tell him thanks! I have some very cute cat icons but that one makes me giggle :D)

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I can feel a rant coming on about banning the use of Latin!

Using a lot of 'easy' words is by no means automatically easier for a non-native English speaker to understand. Yes, vice versa could be confusing - prostitution poetry??? but it will be so obviously wrong in the context that people will know they need to find out what it means. However, if you replace it with and the other way round , non-native speakers with low level of English are likely simply to slide over the words without taking them in.

It's about making the writer's meaning clear to the target audience, and that takes more effort than just banning a few words and phrases, whether they are Latin, Greek, Turkish, French or Arabic.

* jumps up and down a few times, waving fists*

Hah! Rant over. That feels better now.
My former profession (teaching English to international students) comes back to haunt me from time to time!

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*grin* I agree! There has to be a balance between baffling people with Latin (which on occasions confuses me!) and not patronising them. If you don't speak English very well, then you're coming across words you don't know all the time. Heck, I come across words I don't know all the time! That's what context and the dictionary are for...

It's really frustrating when organisations take the view that blanket measures are more effective than a little bit of thought :S

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Maybe it's not exactly that blanket measures are more effective than a little bit of thought .
Maybe their thinking is more, "There's a problem here, so what's the easiest/cheapest/quickest way of looking like we are addressing the problem?" And the answer to that question is unlikely to be training their staff to think about what they are writing!

Fun icon! I shall have to learn how to make some icons myself.

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*grin* Yeah, that's probably more like it.

I don't make any of my own icons - I go round to places like

girlyb_icons,

lilyrose_icons and other homes to people with actual artistic talent and nick them ;) If you look on this page (http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=jadesfire2808), it tells you who made all my different icons. I think this one is one of my few originals!

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I did have a campaign years ago to stop the revenues department using legal latin (and legal English) to defaulters, because most defaulters barely have a grasp on English.

"When you appeared in court on the 29th of November, your case was adjourned. Unless you have continued to pay £23.50 per week, you must appear in court on 7th January."

Guess what - every single recipient of the letter containing that phrase rang up to find out if they should appear in court. "Unless you have continued to pay" is apparently a subjunctive tense. Woo hoo!

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...oh dear... It's most inconsiderate of the English language to do all these strange things...

I do understand wanting to make things clearer, and generally approve, although taking out even things like "etc" and "eg" seems a little extreme. Mind you, I often underestimate people's ability to misunderstand things. Also "council does something that actually helps people" doesn't make such a good headline ;)

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True, too true

"Council bans non-muslim Members from eating during Ramadan" sounds so much better than "Council asks non-muslim members not to scoff everything at the start of the meeting, so non-muslim members have nothing to eat at sunset" (real example, not my Council)

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unfeathered

OMG, that Latin thing! How incredibly pathetic can you get! Even if the average reading age is 12, surely everyone uses 'etc.' and 'eg' by that age!

(P.S. Jack is intrigued by your cat wearing glasses - he says he's 'cool'!)

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I think it's one of those 50/50 things. Sometimes people writing documents *do* use Latin just to show off, but often it's because the Latin says it more succinctly. And there's a strong argument for saying that if you only aim the reading level at age 12, people will never progress beyond that. But things *should* be written in plain English where possible. I tend to go for the "use it, explain it the first time, then go on using it" approach, but I can understand councils with high numbers of non-English speakers wanting to cut back. The problem comes in drawing the line between 'cutting back' and 'eliminating', which I think is where these things tend to go wrong.

*climbs off soapbox*

(*g* tell him thanks! I have some very cute cat icons but that one makes me giggle :D)

From:

I can feel a rant coming on about banning the use of Latin!

Using a lot of 'easy' words is by no means automatically easier for a non-native English speaker to understand. Yes, vice versa could be confusing - prostitution poetry??? but it will be so obviously wrong in the context that people will know they need to find out what it means. However, if you replace it with and the other way round , non-native speakers with low level of English are likely simply to slide over the words without taking them in.

It's about making the writer's meaning clear to the target audience, and that takes more effort than just banning a few words and phrases, whether they are Latin, Greek, Turkish, French or Arabic.

* jumps up and down a few times, waving fists*

Hah! Rant over. That feels better now.
My former profession (teaching English to international students) comes back to haunt me from time to time!

From:

*grin* I agree! There has to be a balance between baffling people with Latin (which on occasions confuses me!) and not patronising them. If you don't speak English very well, then you're coming across words you don't know all the time. Heck, I come across words I don't know all the time! That's what context and the dictionary are for...

It's really frustrating when organisations take the view that blanket measures are more effective than a little bit of thought :S

From:

Maybe it's not exactly that blanket measures are more effective than a little bit of thought .
Maybe their thinking is more, "There's a problem here, so what's the easiest/cheapest/quickest way of looking like we are addressing the problem?" And the answer to that question is unlikely to be training their staff to think about what they are writing!

Fun icon! I shall have to learn how to make some icons myself.

From:

*grin* Yeah, that's probably more like it.

I don't make any of my own icons - I go round to places like

girlyb_icons,

lilyrose_icons and other homes to people with actual artistic talent and nick them ;) If you look on this page (http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=jadesfire2808), it tells you who made all my different icons. I think this one is one of my few originals!

From:

I did have a campaign years ago to stop the revenues department using legal latin (and legal English) to defaulters, because most defaulters barely have a grasp on English.

"When you appeared in court on the 29th of November, your case was adjourned. Unless you have continued to pay £23.50 per week, you must appear in court on 7th January."

Guess what - every single recipient of the letter containing that phrase rang up to find out if they should appear in court. "Unless you have continued to pay" is apparently a subjunctive tense. Woo hoo!

From:

...oh dear... It's most inconsiderate of the English language to do all these strange things...

I do understand wanting to make things clearer, and generally approve, although taking out even things like "etc" and "eg" seems a little extreme. Mind you, I often underestimate people's ability to misunderstand things. Also "council does something that actually helps people" doesn't make such a good headline ;)

From: