Hello and welcome to the first edition of Clear Enough, India's only newsletter on all things plain language! I am excited and nervous for the same reason: I've never had a newsletter of my own before, much less on plain language! So bear with me as I unpack this edition.
I am linking here to my article published in the Frontline magazine on the Bar Council of India's move to include plain language drafting in law school curriculum. This is an important step towards clarity and I dare say it's an important article, too. It sums up the plain language journey so far in India and discusses the challenges to plain language drafting and the way ahead.
I spoke to Joe Kimble for this article -- thank you, Joe! I also thank the other interviewees, Kishore Pariyar and Rohit Sharma.
The article is paywalled, unfortunately. I'm figuring out how I can make it accessible. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read it, please use the contact form on the right and I'll be in touch with you.
One of the beauties of the English language is its ability to transform most nouns into verbs. These noun-turned-verbs are vigorous and can bring the text alive. It is also equally true that one of the ways to write poorly is to do just the opposite: make nouns of perfectly sound verbs.
Here’s an example from Martin Cutts’ Oxford Guide to Plain English:
“The team’s role is to perform problem definition and resolution.”
The writer created nouns from the verbs define and resolve. If these were to revert to their verb forms, the sentence could read thus:
“The team’s role is to define and resolve problems.”
Apart from flowing well, sentences are shorter when verbs are used as verbs -- nine words in the rewrite versus 10 in the original. Yes, that’s just one word less, but visually it makes a huge difference when you drop all the “ition”s.
In Indian languages, though, it doesn’t sound odd if you were to nominalize – the tendency to noun-ify the verbs. In fact, it’s inherent in all Indian languages.
Jyoti Sanyal, the author of Indlish and the pioneer of plain language in India, intimately understood these mannerisms and came up with the “mother tongue, other tongue” approach to help Indians communicate better in English. He said, “Consider the expression: ‘His mother still mothers him.’ It would be impossible to render that expression into any Indian language with such economy. Indian languages operate on the noun. The noun is retained rigidly as a noun, and a do/doing word is placed after it to arrive at action.”
The bane of most legal, academic, and, in India even journalistic writing, seems to be this systematic weakening of verbs. Instead, let verbs be. If possible, create a verb from a noun and enliven your text. Nominalization can end up in noun strings that only serve to muddle the reader or put them to sleep.
Pic credit: Photo by Mo Saeed: https://www.pexels.com/photo/sporty-female-playing-tennis-on-court-5409085/
