Re. Simple (simplified) English?

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Tuija (Isomursu?) asked about the use of simple (also
 called "simplified") English. Welcome to the list, Tuija!

 Simplified English is a particularly helpful tool whenever
 you will translate your text into other languages, but it
 suggests strategies that work well in any project:

 1. Controlled vocabulary: Choose words that have (as near
 as possible) unique meanings rather than words with several
 possible meanings. Create a "dictionary" of permitted words
 and forbidden words, and use this to help you.

 2. Consistency: The corollary to point 1 is that you should
 use words consistently: for example, use each noun to
 represent only a single concept, and for any given concept,
 don't use several synonyms.

 3. Simplified structure: Avoid any unnecessarily complex
 sentences, particularly sentences whose meaning relies on
 subtle differences in punctuation. This doesn't mean that
 you should use only short sentences: a well-written long
 sentence can be more effective than the string of
 truncated, oddly connected sentences that you create by
 shortening it.

 4. Metaphor and idiom: Avoid culturally, religiously,
 politically etc. specific images and phrases. These tend to
 translate poorly outside your own region, and may even
 offend some readers; even if you're not translating, many
 readers won't understand what you're getting at.

 We don't have a formal policy on "simplified English",
 largely because we're aiming all our reports at a
 relatively homogeneous audience. We do, however, use
 standardized terminology in both English and French, and
 follow the four points above as closely as possible during
 editing. We haven't tested whether abandoning these
 principles would compromise readability.

 Speaking of which, don't use any readability indices to
 measure how "simple" your English is. The last time that we
 discussed readability indices on the list, nobody cited any
 indices that accounted for context, audience knowledge and
 the skillful interconnection of words. You'll get better
 results applying the four steps above than editing to meet
 the demands of some mechanically calculated index.

 --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
 geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

 Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
 reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.