The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language
Page 29
Seaspeak recommends a set of standard phrases, to avoid the many alternative ways of expressing a meaning in everyday language. For example, ‘What did you say?’, ‘I can’t hear you’, ‘Please repeat that’, and several other possibilities are all replaced by the single sentence ‘Say again’. The range of meanings expressed by such conjunctions as because, so that, in order to, as, and to are replaced by the word ‘Reason’, as in, ‘I intend to enter stern first. Reason: my port thruster is damaged’. A question is always preceded by the word ‘Question’, a warning by the word ‘Warning’, and so on. Each message has its reply-marker: ‘Answer’, ‘Instruction Received’. Bearings and courses using the 360-degree figure notation are always spoken in three-figure values: ‘oh-oh-five degrees’, not ‘five degrees’. Dates are signalled using prefixes, such as ‘day one-
A Seaspeak conversation
Part of a typical conversation between two ships, taken from the Seaspeak project report. Standard phrases are shown in italics.
NIPPON MARU: Gulf Trader, Gulf Trader. This is Nippon Maru, Juliet-Sierra-Alpha-Alpha. Nippon Maru, Juliet-Sierra-Alpha-Alpha. On VHF channel one-six. Over.
GULF TRADER: Nippon Maru, Juliet-Sierra-Alpha-Alpha. This is Gulf Trader, Alpha-Six-Zulu-Zulu. Over.
NIPPON MARU: Gulf Trader. This is Nippon Maru. Switch to VHF channel zero-six. Over.
GULF TRADER: Nippon Maru. This is Gulf Trader. Agree VHF channel two-six. Over.
NIPPON MARU: Gulf Trader. This is Nippon Maru. Mistake. Switch to VHF channel zero-six. I say again. Switch to VHF channel zero-six. Over.
GULF TRADER: Nippon Maru. This is Gulf Trader. Correction. Agree VHF channel zero-six. Over.
Call signs in Seaspeak (as in several other areas) use a standard alphabet in which each letter is given a name spoken in a fixed pronunciation. Stressed syllables are in bold type.
A
Alpha
AL FAH
B
Bravo
BRAH VOH
C
Charlie
CHAR LEE
D
Delta
DELL TAH
E
Echo
ECK OH
F
Foxtrot
FOKS TROT
G
Golf
GOLF
H
Hotel
HOH TELL
I
India
IN DEE AH
J
Juliet
JEW LEE ETT
K
Kilo
KEY LOH
L
Lima
LEE MAH
M
Mike
MIKE
N
November
NO VEM BER
O
Oscar
OSS CAH
P
Papa
PAH PAH
Q
Quebec
KEY BECK
R
Romeo
ROW ME OH
S
Sierra
SEE AIR RAH
T
Tango
TANG GO
U
Uniform
YOU NEE FORM
V
Victor
VIK TAH
W
Whiskey
WISS KEY
X
Xray
ECKS RAY
Y
Yankey YANG KEY
Z
Zulu
ZOO LOO
three, month zero-two, year one-nine-eight-eight’. Special marker words are used for such messages as urgency (PAN-PAN) and distress (MAYDAY).
Systems such as Seaspeak are but a fraction of the way English is being used for international purposes. The degree of refinement and standardization in this case is extreme; but a similar tendency to eradicate idiosyncrasy and to opt for the most widely understood features of language is common to all areas of international communication. These pressures themselves foster the development of new varieties of the language, of course. Examples from other areas include the linguistic constraints which affect us all when we wish to interact with computers. Indeed, given the fundamental nature of the computer revolution, with the formation of international databases and all kinds of human–machine interaction, from medical diagnosis to supermarket shopping, it is difficult to predict the shape of international English in the twenty-first century. But it seems likely that more rather than less standardization will result. In which case, the gap between the desire for an English which will identify ourselves and our loyalties and an English which will be understood by all will become even wider. We may, in due course, all need to be in control of two standard Englishes – the one which gives us our national or local identity, and the one which puts us in touch with the rest of the human race. In effect, we may all need to become bilingual in our own language.
Plain English
One of the most important trends in contemporary language use is the move towards developing a ‘plain’ English in official speech and writing. The main aim of the Plain English campaigns in Britain and the USA is to attack the use of unnecessarily complicated language (often called ‘gobbledegook’) by government departments, businesses, and any other group whose role puts them in linguistic contact with the general public. Application forms, safety instructions, official letters, licences, contracts, insurance policies, hire-purchase documents, guarantees, and other documents, the campaigners argue, should be presented clearly, using language that people are likely to understand.
The movements are very recent, growing up only in the late 1970s. But already they have played an important part in promoting public awareness of the problems, and they have helped to form a climate of opinion which has led several organizations to change their practices. In the UK, the campaign was launched in 1979 by a ritual shredding of government forms in Parliament Square. By 1985, over 21,000 forms had been revised, and a further 15,000 withdrawn. In the USA, President Carter issued an order in 1978 requiring that regulations be written in plain English; the order was revoked by President Reagan in 1981, but it none the less promoted a great deal of local legislation throughout the country, and an increase in plain English usage among corporations and consumers.
Today, the influence of the campaigns continues to grow. In addition, several research projects into the typographical design of forms have helped to improve current practice. Annual publicity is given to the Plain English Awards in the UK, which commend organizations that have produced the clearest documents, and criticize those whose materials are least intelligible (the Golden Bull awards). In the USA, there is similar interest in the annual Double-speak Awards given by the National Council of Teachers of English to ‘American public figures who have perpetrated language that is grossly unfactual, deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing, or self-contradictory’.
The campaigners stress that clear language does not simply benefit the
An example of one of the new (in 1988) generation of official letters, written as plainly as it is possible to imagine.
recipient; it can also save organizations time and money. They cite cases where unclear letters and instructions have led to so many complaints and questions that staff had to be specially employed to answer them. Another common problem is the return of application forms which have been filled in wrongly because the instructions were too complex or ambiguous. On the positive side, there are firms (such as insurance
Dear/Sir Madam,
I am writing to inform you that the City Council at their meeting on 25th July, 1979, in accordance with the duty imposed by Section 113(1A) of the Housing Act, 1957, to review rents from time to time and to make such changes, either of the rents generally or of particular rents, as circumstances may require, decided that the net rents (i.e. exclusive of rates) of all Council-owned dwellings should continue to be related to Gross Rateable Values and adopted a genera
l basis of 130% of Gross Rateable Value as the level at which the net rents should be set.
Net rents are at present based on 100% of Gross Rateable Values and, as a first step towards achieving the new basis of assessment, the Council have decided that those rents which are below 130% of Gross Rateable Value should be increased with effect from the rent week beginning Monday, 1stOctober, 1979, by 60p per week, or by such appropriate lesser amount as is required to bring them upto the level of 130% of Gross Value, and that current rents which are in excess of 130% Gross Value should remain unchanged.
By contrast, an extract from an old-style letter about housing rents (from the collection of the Plain English Campaign).
companies, and do-it-yourself manufacturers) who have benefited from increased sales, once their publicity or instructional literature was revised in this way.
More than money is involved: health and safety are affected. One focus of the Plain English Campaign’s concern is the kind of language found on medical labels. Instructions such as ‘Use sparingly’ or ‘Take after meals’ were found, in one survey, to be extremely ambiguous. Some patients thought that taking a tablet ‘after a meal’ could mean anything up to immediately before the next meal. ‘Take 2 tablets 4-hourly’ was interpreted in all kinds of ways, such as ‘Take one tablet every two hours’, and ‘Take eight tablets every hour.’
The movement towards plain English has not been without its critics, especially from within the legal profession. It has been pointed out that everyday language is itself very prone to ambiguity, and that if this language were used in official or legal documents, there could be problems. The public, it is argued, needs to have confidence in legal formulations, and that confidence can come only from using language that has been tried and tested in the courts over the years. So far, these fears seem to be without foundation: there has been no sudden increase in litigation as a result of the emergence of plain English materials. On the other hand, it is too early to be sure that these radical changes in communicative practice are going to be problem-free. But there is no doubting the widespread beneficial effects of the campaign, and it looks very much as if the 1980s were a stylistic turning point in the kind of written language used in officialese.
The address of the Plain English campaign:
PO Box 3,
New Mills,
High Peak,
SK22 4QP,
UK
A US organization with similar aims is:
Document Design Center,
American Institutes for Research,
3333 K Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20007–3541,
USA
Do you write plain English?
It is not easy to devise precise, consistent, and acceptable guidelines for writing plain English. Several of the authors who write on this subject disagree as to what counts as ‘plain’ and what does not. Certain recommendations do, however, recur, such as the preference for short words and paragraphs, the use of concrete rather than abstract words, and the avoidance of the passive voice (You should send this form rather than This form should be sent). In Politics and the English Language (1947), George Orwell gave six rules to be followed in everyday language:
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word when a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
His last rule is the most important.
What’s your readability score?
In recent years there has been a vogue for rating the readability of written material using simple mathematical formulae. Such formulae, because they rely on very basic notions, such as the relative length of words and sentences, cannot capture all the linguistic complexity of a text. It is possible to have a text written in short words and sentences which is quite difficult to understand because the thought being expressed is complex. And two texts can have the same ‘score’, but one be more complex than the other, because it uses a more complicated syntax. For example, these two sentences have the same number of words of the same length (in syllables), but the first is much easier than the second:
I can see the man and the cat and the dog and the cow.
The man, who saw the dog that chased the cat, is near the cow.
It is not wise, therefore, to rely exclusively on readability scores in grading the difficulty of texts (as one might in a reading scheme for schools, for example). But there is no harm in keeping an eye on your word and sentence length in this way, as there is no doubt that, all else being equal, short is sweet.
An influential reading test in the USA was devised by Rudolf Flesch. The test gives scores from o (practically unreadable) to 100 (extremely easy to read). Most states require that insurance documents, for example, should score between 40 and 50 on this test. According to the English language researcher James Dayananda, the Reader’s Digest scores 65, Time magazine 52, and the Harvard Law Review 32. You can try it out on anything you have written – even something as everyday as a letter.
Count the words in your text.
Count the syllables in the words.
Count the sentences. (A sentence here means anything followed by a full-stop, colon, semi-colon, dash, question mark, or exclamation mark.)
Divide the number of sentences by the number of words (thus working out the average number of words per sentence).
Multiply the average word length by 84.6.
Multiply the average sentence length by 1.015.
Add the two numbers, and subtract them from 206.835.
The result is your readability score.
There are always a few problems in interpreting instructions of this kind. As we have seen (p. 41), it is not easy to say what counts as a word: for example, different people will write ashtray or ash tray. And punctuation varies greatly from person to person. You will often find yourself making a few arbitrary decisions. But the results are always interesting.
To illustrate the procedure, here is the readability score for the first two paragraphs of Chapter 1:
A Total words: 154
B Total syllables: 244
C Total sentences: 8
B ÷ A = 1.584 x 84.6= 134.006+
A ÷ C = 19.25 x 1.015 = 19.539
* * *
153.545
206.835 – 153.545 = 53.29
Not in Reader’s Digest’s league, but slightly better than Time, it seems. On the other hand, this criterion shows considerable variation in my style. The first two paragraphs of the present section (p. 285), produced a score of 27.9, lower than the Harvard Law Review.
Your turn?
Type of text
Total words (A)
Total syllables (B)
Total sentences (C)
B ÷ A = A ÷ C =
× 84.6 × 1.015 206.835 -
——— ———
+ =
——— ——— ————
Readability score =
————
15
English Tomorrow
If, instead of looking to the past, we speculate on the future, our language will hardly sink in our estimate of its importance. Before another century has gone by, it will, at the present rate of increase, be spoken by hundreds of millions.
E. Guest, A History of English Rhythms, 1838
Guest was right. But not all predictions about the future of a language come true. In the nineteenth century, as we have seen in Chapter 1, several people were confidently claiming that, within 100 years, British and American English would be mutually unintelligible. The same prediction
‘Funny how you soon forget his regional accent’
Pun
ch, 27 June 1984
continues to be made today. Again, in the nineteenth century, people were citing split infinitives and other ‘errors’ (see p. 28) as evidence of the decline of the language, and giving English only a few years to live if drastic reform were not undertaken. The same prediction continues to be made today.
The future of a language is closely bound up with the influence and prestige of its speakers – and who can predict such things? What will be the balance of power among the major nations of the world a century from now? Will American supremacy continue to underwrite the role of English? Or will some momentous political or economic event motivate people to look elsewhere for their world language? The role of English has developed to such an extent, unprecedented in world history, that it is difficult to see how it can now be dislodged. But people must have thought that way about Latin once.
The break-up of Latin into the modern Romance languages is often referred to by prophets of linguistic doom. They point to the way new varieties of English are rapidly developing in different parts of the world (see Chapters 13 and 14). They quote the many voices in newly independent nations who argue the need for further language change in order to provide a badge of political, social, and literary identity. They conclude that within a generation or two international standard English will have fragmented into a range of only partly intelligible dialects.