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It's interesting that the article itself isn't written in plain language, using idioms such as "posing a barrier" and many others which, according to a strict a
by the_af 5y ago
It's interesting that the article itself isn't written in plain language, using idioms such as "posing a barrier" and many others which, according to a strict application of these rules, should be removed in favor of plainer forms [EDIT: as others have pointed out, I completely missed that you can switch the whole article to simple style. How embarrassing!]
I agree with some simplifications, e.g. "profoundly deaf" is essentially meaningless and bad style, it adds nothing over simply saying "deaf", but most other instances of paraphrased and simplified text miss something. Saying "a couple dozen" is natural language, this is how regular humans speak. What is gained by removing flavor and natural idioms from language?
To me, a lot of these simplifications sound like removing natural language and replacing it with something written by a robot, or where the target audience are children or non-native speakers. The text loses its flavor while aiming to be as simple to understand as possible; that's not a tradeoff I would choose in the majority of situations.
- dangerlibrary 5y agoIt seems like maybe you missed the "swap for the plain language version" gimmick of the overall article.
- the_af 5y agoWell, that's... embarrassing. Indeed I did! I didn't notice the switch, will try it now.
- shagie 5y agoI missed over the one in the header (I blame header blindness) but realized that there was alternate text on the side to the paragraphs. Now that I understand the plain text swap at the top, that's a neat way of representing it and I understand the feature a bit better.
- JackFr 5y ago> "profoundly deaf" is essentially meaningless and bad style "Profoundly deaf" is not meaningless, nor is it bad style. It is in fact a medical diagnosis. Deafness exists on a continuum, and as deafness is measured "profoundly" is the most deaf you can be.
- fl0wenol 5y agoI think for the layperson, "deaf" without any qualifier is treated the same as profoundly deaf. I think the term "hard of hearing" is used when someone exists elsewhere on that continuum for most.
- throw10920 5y agoAre you referring to the paragraph "The benefits of plain language aren’t limited to universally challenging texts like legal documents and tax forms. Even everyday writing, like news articles, can still pose a barrier for some readers."? The included alternate plain writing sentence reads "Some kinds of writing are hard for everyone to read, like tax forms. But everyday writing, like the news, can be hard to read too." without any mention of "barrier". Are you aware that the article is also written in the simpler style, as well? You can click on the paragraphs to toggle them.
- the_af 5y agoYes, I completely missed that the article can be switched to simple style. Thanks for pointing that out!