Talk:Plain language

My kingdom for a source?

"In the 1940s, Robert Gunning and Rudolf Flesch conducted extensive studies of what Americans read. They found that the most popular literature, magazines and pulp fiction, were written at the 7th-grade levels. Today, all popular novels such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Da Vinci Code are written at the 7th-grade level. Gunning worked with the United Press and Flesch worked with the Associated Press. They were able to bring down the grade-level of the writing of those organizations from the 16th to the 11th-grade level, where most newspapers remain today."

Astounding! That would explain the cause of what seems like sophomoric writing in newspapers today. The implications of this are profound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.91.253.96 (talk • contribs) 08:27, 17 January 2007

pirates of the Caribbean example

1) It's original research. 2) It's wrong. "I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request" literally means what it says (I don't want to allow what you just requested), but also carries implications toward future good-faith. If the speaker is speaking in good faith, then this statement carries the implicit idea of, "while I am not necessarily opposed conceding to your demand in principle, you have not yet persuaded or motivated me to do so." This is very different from a flat "no," which is usually interpreted as having a harsher sense of finality and decisiveness, and comes across as a harsher conversation-ender. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.209.237 (talk) 01:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing in "I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request" other than "No". If the speaker really wants to say "No, but you might convince me if you try harder", the speaker can say that. An essential aspect of plain language is to say what you mean without relying on the listener to supply additional meaning. In real life people do expect other people to read their minds, but that is why "plain language" is a "movement" - it's an attempt to change people toward communicating more reliably than they do now. Plain language is also about making oneself clear to people with different cultural backgrounds. --Teratornis (talk) 22:43, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Merged articles

Merged "plain language movement" into plain language. The movement is best described in the history of plain language. Fluous (talk) 04:12, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Removed category

Arguably interesting, but only tangentially related to plain language. Maybe it can be added to the history section in a sentence or two.

Plain language in telecommunications

Plain language is defined in Article 19 (page 23 and 24) of TELEGRAPH REGULATIONS (GENEVA REVISION, 1958) which complement the INTERNATIONAL :TELECOMMUNICATION CONVENTION (BUENOS AIRES, 1952).

In this telecommunication context, plain language is opposed to secret language.

In this telecommunication context, plain language is defined as:

• intelligible meaning in one or more of the languages admitted
• each word and each expression having the meaning normally assigned to it in the language to which it belongs.

Fluous (talk) 04:32, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello, I'm looking into adding a bit to this article within the next couple of days, namely to detail the definition and to add guidelines for writing in plain language. Hope that's ok? Clear14 (talk) 01:17, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

References