Easy English

I was surfing through internet this morning and got to thinking about one of my very favorite pastimes - proof reading (c’mon, everybody has his own little quirk).

Most of the texts I get to proof have been written by native German speakers and should ultimately sound as if they came from native English speakers. That isn’t always possible, so let’s just say that that is the über-goal of most proof reading activities, but often I’ll settle for understandable, readable and less complex than the writer originally planned.

And German speakers are a highly complex bunch. Endlessly long sentences, relative clause heaped upon relative clause and stacks of nouns long enough to challenge any check out counter on December 24 (continuous production improvement project committee report, just to give you an idea of what I mean). The passive voice is to be used by all who write, successfully obscuring the subject of a given action to anyone, even those tenacious enough to read to the end of the sentence. And those most persistent readers, when finally reaching the end of a long and winding sentence, will often unexpectedly find that active verb they would have enjoyed (and understood) at the beginning of the sentence.

Whew.

We English speakers are different. We don’t pride ourselves in being able to create long, complex sentences. We have no innate love of unpronounceable compound nouns. We derive no pleasure from seeing our readers valiantly seeking verbs at the end of our sentences or watching them wade through rows upon rows of related and unrelated clauses.

Nope.
We’re a simple lot.
We do best with short, active sentences.
We get to the point.
We say it and get it over with.

We write reports. Seldom do we recapitulate the results of projects in written form. We validate findings. We usually don’t convince ourselves of the integrity of disclosed outcomes. We trash things. We rarely dispose of things in the receptacle set aside for that purpose.

Well, enough of that. Here’s what Charlotte has to say about her editing (and children) woes. I suppose I should try drowning my editing problems in a mug of warm milk too (without the addition of sweet, pleasing honey and instead go for four fingers of cognac).

proof reading editing verb noun native English speaker German complex language