Jeffrey Shaw Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 This thread is intended to give examples of poor English used by officials, as seen by SF members, and how it could be written more clearly. Please post examples BUT only if your version is an improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Shaw Posted July 25, 2011 Author Share Posted July 25, 2011 Here's one, seen in The Times on Friday last. Someone called Stephen Elop (ex-chief of Microsoft) was quoted as saying, "The challenges we are facing during our strategic transformation manifested in a greater than expected way in the second quarter of 2011." Urgh! Maybe he meant to say, "In Spring 2011, the company lost more money than expected." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carosio Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 Yes, a good example of circumlocution, and officials aren't the only ones that are prone to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Shaw Posted July 25, 2011 Author Share Posted July 25, 2011 True. Some solicitors do it, too. However, users of sloppy-thinking words (rather than technical terms) are the focus, here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carosio Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 The example you have given might have been constructed deliberately to keep the share price steady; such phraseology is common in company reports. I've seen loads of poor grammar in The Times, I keep promising to "highlight" them but never do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeX Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 spell check, read what you write. this includes me if you have microsoft word, copy and paste into that, find your spelling mistakes and then copy back. if you are more technically savvy, use an add-on in firefox or extension in chrome to automatically highlight your mistakes. if you cannot do any of the above and are still having difficulty with your spelling, just google the worlds you are unsure about. google will correct it for you if its wrong to a point, but if its so wrong google cant figure it out, you're screwed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altus Posted July 25, 2011 Share Posted July 25, 2011 The problem is, microsoft (assuming that is who he is referring to) has just recorded record profits, so I doubt he means anything about losing money. But Nokia, who he is now boss of, have done exactly the opposite so losing money is exactly what it is about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert_Baehr Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 This has got to be the best hospital sign ever Well done Northampton General. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barleycorn Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 spell check, read what you write. this includes me if you have microsoft word, copy and paste into that, find your spelling mistakes and then copy back. if you are more technically savvy, use an add-on in firefox or extension in chrome to automatically highlight your mistakes. if you cannot do any of the above and are still having difficulty with your spelling, just google the worlds you are unsure about. google will correct it for you if its wrong to a point, but if its so wrong google cant figure it out, you're screwed You may need to change the settings on your spell checker to capitalize the first letter of a sentence and proper nouns. jb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickycheese Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 just google the worlds you are unsure about. Why you shouldn't rely on a spellchecker... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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