Language Skills - using Plain Language
By Shirley Robbins
This Book is a working course with exercises to reinforce the information presented, and there are answers at the back of the book!
This is also available as eBook.
Pg 4 Introduction: This book is meant for everyone who uses English as a medium of communication. Whether English is your, first, second or a foreign language.
Pg 6: It’s what and how they say it …..
In South Africa the phrase, ‘Just now’ could mean in ten minutes or ten hours – African time. This creates problems for English speakers from other countries as they interpret it to mean ‘now!’
Pg 21: Communication – language register and styles of writing.
Pg 26: The choice of words – short, familiar, Anglo-Saxon words, figurative language.
Pg 39: Differences in meaning – words that present problems – such pairs as access/excess, adapt and adopt, advice and advise etc.
Pg 45: Be master of these common errors – articles; abbreviations; the use of each, everyone etc; concordance; collective nouns; ‘They sent Ralf and I’ is incorrect – we explain why; pronouns; shall and will and how to get around the problem!
Pg 53: Finding better words – use plain Anglo-Saxon words rather than those of French or Latin origin eg: adequate – enough; approximately – about.
Pg 60: Sentence structure – remember that English takes its meaning from the order of the words in the sentence. Keep it short and simple – KISS!
Pg 64: Paragraphs and topic sentences – structure of paragraphs; transitional words and phrases. Active and passive verbal structures; direct and reported speech.
Pg 72: The bogeyman of English – spelling! - A few basic rules.
Pg 79: Pronunciation – first point – note the spelling! This is a detailed section on how to pronounce the main categories of English words.
Pg 93: Rules of the Grammar Road – Grammar is often likened to a road map to guide you along the language road. The nine parts of speech – nouns and adjectives; adverbs; verbs, including tenses and forms; conjunctions for joining sentences, and prepositions – which have no rules, you just have to learn them!
Pg 146: Punctuation. Punctuation is used to make text easier to read and understand, and to make it sound more like the spoken word with its pauses and emphasis.
Pg 153: Agreement of a pronoun and its antecedent eg:
Pg 160: Using numbers – Arabic and Roman.
Pg 161: Common errors in business English – no main verb; parallelism; dangling modifiers; the Rule of proximity – eg: ‘The engine may crack when water is poured in unless it is running.’ The engine should be running, not the water!
Pg 165: Gobbledygook – includes pomposity, legalese, acadamese and officialese. We call all these Gobbledygook, and it is one of the major problems found in official documents, legal writing, and sad to say, still found in many business letters and documents. It is the exact opposite of the principles of Plain Language writing.
Pg 172: We end with – Personalise your communication. The emphasis in communication is to get your message across clearly and concisely, with the correct level of language and tone. Use terms such as ‘we, you, us, they’ etc. That is the way you would express yourself if you were sitting opposite the person at your desk. The object today is to bring the written word closer to the spoken.
Good luck and good writing!
About the author:
Shirley Robbins has 35 year's teaching experience and 14 years of consulting and training all aspects of Communication in Plain Language to government, municipalities, corporate business, as well as facilitating Public Seminars. She has trained German students in Cape Town and also in Berlin (Germany); trained throughout South Africa as well as in Swaziland.
