Why We Need To Use Plain English

Do you work with non-native speakers of English? If so, why spend time learning idioms and difficult grammatical constructions?

Is it not more important for us all to focus on speaking and writing clearly and correctly? We want our listeners to understand us the first time around—without asking us to repeat what we said, don’t we?

That’s why I prefer to use plain language. A language that most people understand the first time they hear it.

So what can we do?

We can:

• use short, clear words whenever possible,
• keep most sentences short,
• avoid jargon and idioms,
• use active rather than passive whenever possible,
• choose to use verbs rather than nouns, and
• avoid abbreviations.

We’ll make fewer mistakes in our communication. And we can still be creative and expressive—and sound well-educated.

I’d love to know what you think about this.