The Copy Book

Straightforward English

If freedom and democracy are to have any meaning, the public must be able to talk back to their governors.

1949

Saloppy spelling?

© Roger Kidd, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

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Straightforward English

© Roger Kidd, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. Source

Saloppy spelling?

X

English as she is spoke... In this case, deliberately mangled to make you slow down and work it out. “Dunner go to fast past ere” the signs reads “or you’ll get cussed.” The narrow lane near Upton Cresset in Shropshire passes right through the middle of a farm, where there are animals and people coming and going all the time.

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Introduction

The euphoria that followed the Allied victory over Nazi Germany four years earlier had not clouded schoolmaster NL Clay’s wits. In Straightforward English (1949), a guide ‘designed to help an ordinary person to write a clear message’, he told the British public that we must speak plainly and never be satisfied with slogans or jargon, or we would find ourselves walking down the same unhappy road as the Germans.

TODAY more than ever we need writers of straightforward English. We need them if we are to preserve the heritage of plain prose against unceasing attacks by powerful enemies — shoddy thinking, speech appealing to prejudice, mass-entertainment with all its supporting printed matter, snobbery, and what deceives the uncritical into thinking it is ‘fine writing’. We particularly need them because of the value of clear thinking: ‘They who are learning to compose and arrange their sentences with accuracy and order are learning at the same time to think with accuracy and order.’*

If ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ are to be more than catchwords, clear communication must be the rule, and not the exception. In a totalitarian state it may be sufficient for the dictator and his henchmen to be able to use straightforward language. Do we want a society in which placid masses take their orders from bosses? The alternative to government by force is government by persuasion. The latter must mean that the governed can talk back to the governors – that Tom Smith can put a pointed question to his M.P., can write an intelligible letter to the editor of a newspaper, and can exchange views with his work-mates, in speech or writing. Tom Smith and his wife are better citizens if they have learned to value and practise straightforward English.

From ‘Straightforward English’ (1949) by N.L. Clay.

* From Lectures on Rhetoric by the Revd Hugh Blair, the first Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Edinburgh. See Order and Method.

Précis

Just as dictators have a vested interest in keeping their public inarticulate, so too the ability to write and speak clearly is essential to a free and democratic society. Ordinary people can serve their country by learning to speak and write in good, plain English, and by using it to stay informed and to hold their government to account. (59 / 60 words)

Just as dictators have a vested interest in keeping their public inarticulate, so too the ability to write and speak clearly is essential to a free and democratic society. Ordinary people can serve their country by learning to speak and write in good, plain English, and by using it to stay informed and to hold their government to account.

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Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, besides, just, may, or, since, unless, whether.

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Word Games

Sevens Based on this passage

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why does a totalitarian government have no need for an articulate public?

Suggestion

Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.

Jigsaws Based on this passage

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Dictators give orders. They expect them to be obeyed. No discussion is allowed.

Spinners Find in Think and Speak

For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.

This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.

1 Back. Entertainment. Prose.

2 Straightforward. Support. Well.

3 Good. Heritage. Print.

Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)

High Tiles Find in Think and Speak

Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?

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