Writing English as a Second Language (2009) | Hacker News Reader

Writing English as a Second Language (2009)

theamericanscholar.org

53 pointsTomte11 comments

There are some good points here - I particularly like the contrasts with Arabic and Spanish - but the proscription against using Latinate words is far too strong!

The dean of my old law school shows how you can mix Saxon and Latin words to achieve beautiful, strong effects: https://reason.com/volokh/2020/06/22/what-did-lincoln-know-a...

Elsewhere he gives examples from Churchill. Churchill liked to start out with Latinate words describing the malicious onslaught of the adversary, and end with pure simple Saxon words describing our brave boys' stand.

Or, you might do nearly the opposite, ending with Latinate words beautifully exalting our glorious intrepidity.

Anyway, you should certainly not throw out all words but short Saxon-derived ones. Keep them all, and use them wisely!

Hopefully the people following the article's advice will never have to write about any scientific or technical topic.

Beside, it is interesting that as an example of bad Latin origin word the author chose "fulfillment".

If the author's point is in fact "do not use long words that make my head hurt", he should keep it simple and let it at that, instead of bringing etymology up.

I think the author equates English and American English, which as you observed is much different from the British English of Churchill.

Nice read.

Something I find really funny is how I was thought oxford's English and the teachers made us pronounce "correctly" the words. I thought that's how everyone spoke. Oh boy, my surprise when I started traveling, everyone pronounces however they want, from the irish, americans, indians, to the australians, even in London no one spoke the way I knew!

This made me feel more comfortable with my English, if I miss pronounce a word, I think it's actually subjective, probably someone pronounces the same way I do haha

And when I really have doubts, I started making notes of these words and I check them in this app that someone built https://youglish.com/ thanks random human!

Even native speakers run into this a lot. There are words that are quite rare in spoken English but more common when writing. And then you hear someone else pronounce it and it’s completely different than how you say it, and you’re both not sure who’s right. And sometimes you’re both wrong :)

Here’s random article I found about it: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/01/31/words-readers-cant-say

I got 3/7 on the quiz, but I didn’t know half the words...

English is my third language. Keeping sentences short and simple helped me read and write better. It also makes revising my own notes easier.

Writing for clarity is also something I first came in contact with when learning English as a foreign language.

It's interesting, there is also a cultural aspect to the language. Anglo-saxon cultures of schooling and work environments value clarity and generally consider language 'embellishment' as adding friction or just plain wrong.

I distinctly remember being in English classes (at a Language institute outside normal curriculum) and learning how to structure an essay or how to structure a letter and thinking to myself why on Earth am I learning about literature pieces in my mother tongue without first covering this basic soft skill?

Perhaps I am generallizing but most Romanic languages seem to have a cultural influence from the medieval Francophone 'cathedra' university, with a school of thought, which now to me, seems to overvalue 'sounding smart' and embellishing instead of getting your message across.

Is that only me who finds Latinated sentences easier to read? I think so because "pure English" sentences contain phrasal verbs which are harder for me, also in sentences with short words information flows so fast that I cannot follow. Additionally, when speaking, long words are easier to recognize and short words are more prone to miss when mispronounced.

Here's a tip that will make you look like a professional writer instantly: search your text for the words "actually" and "actual" and delete them all to hell. No need to revise anything, just delete them -they are useless and are on the way. Bonus tip to native English speakers (non-natives for some reason don't seem to make this mistake): don't use "then" where you should use "than". I also have a pet peeve with American women trying to talk an octave lower than their natural voice, but that'll be a comment for another article.

This article reminds me of the book “Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style”, one of the best books I’ve read the last couple of years.

English is my second language.

Never read this. As I speak 4 languages and dabble in 2 others. English is actually my 3rd language but currently most used language.

Still it is hard to write natively. I still write my first language structures in English. I try to be thoughtful about it. But sometimes you just need to get the message out...

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