At the last quarterly gathering of the PEG Gauteng group, the topic of discussion was ‘Conscious and inclusive language’. One member offered a novel solution to the problem of language that excludes – try to not be so...
Cripple, dumb, spaz, spastic, midget, crazy, invalid, handicapped, moron, idiot, retarded, deaf-mute, deaf and dumb, stupid, Mongol … these are only some hurtful terms that inconsiderate people use to refer to people...
I have written this brief piece in response to an enquiry from a respected language practitioner colleague who was asking which of the meanings of ‘skryfwyse’ the English word ‘style’ best conveys, if any at all. My...
What is the active voice? In the active voice, the subject performs the action. Sentences are active in voice when the person or thing performing the action comes before the verb. The message is clear about who is...
Why copy editors mull over sentence structure and composition Subject, verb, object (subject + predicate) – may seem like an obvious order for many people, but recognising how words are strung together and in what...
We asked PEG members with a particular interest in Plain Language – and a long commitment as PEG members – their thoughts on Plain Language. This blog post is a collaborative effort of several PEG members: it takes us...
It’s the bravery – the courageous stepping into the unknown – that now delights me. There was a time when pedantry could have been my middle name. When misplaced apostrophes, caps strewn among non-proper-noun words...
In part 1 and part 2 of this post, I discussed some of the problems of lack of clarity and of verbosity that are common in academic writing and gave two examples of how typical constructions can be greatly improved in...
In part 1 of this post, I discussed some of the problems of the lack of clarity and of verbosity that are common in academic writing. What follows are some examples of typical constructions that can be greatly improved...
(Note: The first part of this article introduced helpful resources for various dictionaries and general copy-editing.) A book can contain many elements besides solid blocks of type. ... It is the editor's job to make...
No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft. HG Wells A passion it may well be, but altering ‘someone else’s draft’ also requires more than a mote of know-how. Now, that know-how does...
This article appeared in De Morgen newspaper on Saturday, 10 August 2019. It was translated from the Dutch by John Linnegar for the May 2020 issue of PEGboard. Gender-neutral language makes people think...
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. - Nelson Mandela Happy International Mother Language Day! We use language every day...
