Writing on Australia Day, it is an appropriate reminder that Plain English means avoiding slang terms that readers (particularly on the international forum of the Web) may not understand. This doesn’t mean you can’t marvel at the colourful colloquialisms human beings have created. Have a look at the Australian Slang Dictionary. I particularly like the entries under Y, which include yabber (to talk too much), yabby (a small freshwater lobster/crayfish), yack (to talk), yakka (hard manual labour), and yarn (to have a talk or discussion with someone). Very confusing to those not in the know!
911 writer’s block 6 January, 2009
Here’s a fabulous and fun resource for anyone with Writer’s Block. Dial a number for settings, characters or dialogue inspiration. Or get motivated with the words of great writers, such as Mark Twain who advised writers to just get on with it. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
Six rules for writing 5 December, 2008
The English novelist and journalist George Orwell once asked, “Is there anyone who has ever written so much as a love letter in which he felt that he had said exactly what he intended?”
It takes a master craftsman to recognise the limitations of his tools. As Orwell observed, “So soon as we are dealing with anything that is not concrete or visible (and even there to a great extent – look at the difficulty of describing anyone’s appearance) we find that words are no liker to the reality than chessmen to living beings.”
In Politics and the English Language, Orwell goes on to provide six rules for writing that have stood the test of time:
- Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive voice 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.
