English can be a very confusing and complex language even for hardened practitioners. Ask any two reporters to write a report on an event they have both witnessed at the same time and you are bound to get two different angles. Ask two writers for guidance on usage and you?ll often get two, confident but differing opinions.
Even the esteemed authorities are not easy reference sources. They assume a familiarity with the technical intricacies of grammar and the associated jargon that leaves most of us more confused than before.
The concept of language errors is a fuzzy one. I?ll leave the technical definitions to linguists.
In this article, my only concern is with deviations from the standard use of English as judged by sophisticated users such as professional writers, editors, teachers, literate executives and English professors.
The aim is to give heart to those very bad writers who sometimes appear on Ghanaweb so that they can come clean, accept and learn from their mistakes and not to be defensive about their errors.
It is also to plead with critics to be more objective in their criticisms, since even those who criticise sometimes make some really unpardonable errors in their correction texts.?
For example, not so long ago there was an article criticising the GNA for the poor quality of some of the agency?s output. Unfortunately for the writer, he also erred on a few occasions. In one paragraph he wrote,
"And if after a half-century of continuous operation, this is only what Ghana has by way of professional artistry, to show the outside world, then, indeed, God ought to have mercy on us all!"
First of all, he began the sentence with a conjunction. Perhaps he was writing for an American audience. If not, then he was wrong.
Secondly, using long and complex words and sentences present a fuzzy rather than a clear picture. Consider this revision of the above extract:
?After half-a-century of continuous operation, if this is only what Ghana has to show the outside world in terms of professional competence, then God have mercy on us all.?
This is by no means perfect. Someone could do a better job. That is why the profession of journalism in particular and writing in general calls for humility and not arrogance. This is because, more often than not, one person?s mistake ? some might say- is another?s standard usage. However, this is not true. Realistically, if your standard usage causes other people to consider you stupid, ignorant, semi-literate, or doubt your status, you might want to consider changing it. If not, wanting to be read or heard would be like knocking your head against the proverbial brick wall.
You have the right to express yourself in any manner you please. However, if you wish to communicate effectively, you should use non-standard English only when you intend to, rather than fall into it because you don?t know any better.
The most convincing ideas in the world, expressed in the most beautiful sentences, will move no one unless those ideas are properly delivered in terms of style, tone and digestibility. Unless readers and listeners alike can move easily from one thought to another effortlessly, they will surely find something else to read or listen to.
For most of us, English is still a challenge. With all its irregularities, exceptions and rules, English is a very difficult language to master. As a trained journalist and not a linguist, I cannot even begin to spell out the rules.
There are funny rules. Some people say that you cannot begin a sentence with a conjunction. It offends those who wish to confine English usage in a logical and meaningful but restricted container that certain writers often begin sentences with "and" or "but." Other people also insist that since "none" is derived from "no one" it should always be singular: "none of us is having dessert." However, in standard usage, the word is most often treated as a plural. "None of us are having dessert" will do just fine.
Such rules, when adhered to in a piece of writing, make for beautiful and effortless reading.
However, for majority of us we just want to read honest and straightforward prose, which we can understand and contribute to on Ghanaweb.
You do not need a degree in English to write well. Some of the bad writing we see on the Ghanaweb is the result of carelessness, bad habit and poor literacy skills. Most of the mistakes are centred on; grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Grammar
For grammar, I have chosen two simple definitions. On the web, grammar is defined as: ?the study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.? The Collins Dictionary (Millennium Edition) defines grammar as:
?the use of language with regard to its correctness??
It can be seen from the two meanings above that grammar can be safely regarded as ?how words combine to form correct sentences?.
Grammatical errors occur when someone constructs a sentence clumsily, or uses words and phrases incorrectly. With the exception of colloquialisms and creativity, we're talking about proper English for the academic and business worlds. If you want to be taken seriously, it is important to have a decent command of the oral and written language.
Proper grammar can mean the difference between respect and derision in most walks of life; of promotion or being passed over in the workplace. Businesses and bosses want the people who represent them to sound professional and well-educated. All you want then is to get it right most of the time.
It is not necessary to know all the technical terms to get it right. It just takes a little effort and practice and soon it will be second-nature. Another key is to read ? and read a lot. Reading professionally published materials will help to polish one's sense and mastery of the language. The best resources need not be boring, but should be quality journalism and literature. Most of all, stick to simple and easy words and sentences.
Complex sentences are like a labyrinth. You have to be adept at using them, otherwise you lose your way completely. Look at the following extract from an article that appeared on Ghanaweb:
?Barely a week after whirlwind-touring some urban Ghanaian communities, here in the United States, with a beggar's bowl in hand, the perennial presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress stood at Breman-Asikuma spitting hellfire and swearing to ensure that the NDC would flatly reject any polling returns emanating from the Ghanaian Diaspora come Election 2008 (Ghanaweb.com 9/2/07).?
The above is a complex sentence with embedded phrases. Simple writing involves using few, if possible, embedded phrases. Hence, stripped bare, the above could be revised as follows:
?Barely a week after touring some Ghanaian communities in the United States, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate stood at Breman-Asikuma and said that the party would reject polling returns from the Ghanaian Diaspora in the 2008 elections.?
I hope I am not alone in thinking that ?whirlwind-touring? could have been safely replaced by ?a whirlwind tour of?. It makes easy reading; it also prevents the writer from entangling himself in a web of incorrect punctuation and the inevitable derision that comes from critical and analytical readers.
The other phrases such as, ?with a beggar's bowl in hand?; ?spitting hellfire and swearing?; ect are all embedded and are there to add body to the skeleton. Sometimes it works, at other times it can be off-putting.
Any aspiring writer, who wants to write and write well, should stick to using simple words and straightforward sentences and basic punctuation. You are bound to get the grammar right and get the real meaning across to the reader. This is true as long as you get your spelling right too.
Spelling
Spelling is defined as:
?the forming of words with letters in an accepted order? on the web.
The Collins Dictionary (Millennium Edition) defines spelling as:
?the act or process of writing words by using the letters conventionally accepted for their formation.?
Spelling is very much influenced by pronunciation. Most people spell words by attempting to represent the sounds that they hear. Therefore, people with different accents might make different spelling mistakes.
In England, the native speakers have a knack for confusing and misspelling words such as: your and you?re, their and they?re. Last week I saw a shop in the East End of London. The name was written boldly and it read, ?The Original Alan Bastad? . The East End cockney accent has a lot to do with the misspelling of bastard.
I took on a temp at work who was a qualified lawyer. She was a hard worker and I wanted to retain her. However, my boss said to me, ?she can?t spell and we cannot afford to have such people in our team.? I tried to argue her case but my boss would have none of it.
A few days later, the temp announced to the rest of the workforce via email that she was leaving. Guess what she wrote: ?fair well.? My boss felt vindicated and with a sense of triumph, she looked at me with a knowing smile across her chubby face.
The average Ghanaian sells something, therefore the ?for sale? sign has shrunk ? like the rest of the country?s use of English ? to ?for sell?. It is bandied about a lot and nobody bats an eyelid.
Yet, it is true that spelling mistakes cost lives. There are different kinds of spelling mistakes: some are typographical errors; others are oversights; but most are due to ignorance. A nursing student who is writing an essay on high blood pressure, and writes 'hypotension' instead of 'hypertension' can cost someone their life. 'Hypotension' actually means low blood pressure, so this spelling mistake might end up killing somebody.
A Major Spelling Mistake is when you make a mess of a word that is especially important in your subject, or a word which is part of the title of the essay. A good example is an English student who is writing an essay on ?privileged children? and keeps writing 'priveleged' instead.
While the spelling of most English words is regular, irregularly-spelled words are among the most commonly-used. This is one reason why English spelling is such a big problem for a good many people. This problem is compounded by the emergence of American English.
There are some few differences between American English spellings and other types.
Some examples of these differences are:
type American other
o/ou color colour
er/re center centre
single/double letters traveling travelling
s/c defense defence
i/y tire tyre
g/gue analog analogue
ft/aught draft draught
m/mme program programme
Still, the existence of such differences do not excuse bad writing. Regardless of what type of English you are using, once you start, you cannot change at any point. You have to be consistent all the way through your whole construction.
Punctuation
Punctuation is defined as ?the use of standard marks and signs in writing and printing to separate words into sentences, clauses, and phrases in order to clarify meaning.?
How important is punctuation? It is very important because it can change the meaning of what message needs to be delivered. Through punctuation, the writer is able to express all kinds of feelings and emotions. Its relevance comes to light when an article containing similar words is given a different stance through the use of punctuation marks in different parts of the same words. Different sentences, clauses, and phrases emerge to provide clarity. Read the two letters below and then decide on how important punctuation is.
Love letter one
Dear Amma:
I want a woman who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, and thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other women. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy -- will you let me be yours truly?
Kwansa
Loveless letter two
Dear Amma:
I want a woman who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, and thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other women, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours truly, Kwansa
How would you write this extract from an article which appeared in The Statesman on 17 August 2007?
"The GNA story, which was published on Ghanaweb.com on August 7, 2007, was titled "Latest Assassination Case Heightens Apprehension." What makes this blatant abuse of language so egregious is the fact that nowhere within the contents of the article does the reporter alert his/her readers to the fact of the deceased, a Mr Emmanuel Atiso, having been involved in any form of politics, other than the visceral "political fact" that the late Mr Atiso, like most of his countrymen and women, was diligently about the sacred business of attempting to earn his keep, as it were, by keeping a night watch over some building materials belonging to a local dealership called the Isaac Owusu-Ansah Company Limited.? (116 words)
Egregious = offensive; visceral = primitive (basic, in this context)
Could it have been made more easy and digestible as follows?
?The GNA story, published on Ghanaweb on 7 August 2007 was under the headline ?Latest Assassination Case Heightens Apprehension.? What makes this misleading headline ridiculous is the fact that the reporter made no attempt to inform the reader that the deceased, a Mr. Emmanuel Atiso, had been involved in some form of politics. Instead, the article gave the impression that Mr. Atiso was an ordinary man who was only trying to earn his living by providing night time security for some building materials owned by the Isaac Owusu-Ansah Company Limited, a local dealership.? (93 words).
Good English is about producing writing which is readable. When you sit down to write, are you writing for professionals, adults, teenagers, parents, or a specific target audience? As can be seen, the answer is not that easy, especially if you are writing for Ghanaweb. Many Ghanaians read Ghanaweb, including our children.
It is therefore important to write for a wider audience so that we can all smile when we open the site because we can easily read and understand the articles. The watchword is readability.
Readability
Rudolf Flesch and Robert Gunning devised an index to work out the readability of a piece of text. Together, they devised the ?Fog Index? and numbered it 1-10. It goes from unskilled (1) to professional (10). The general rule is that if you are able to hit between 4 and six, you are catering for are the average reader.
George Orwell, in his Politics and the English Language, advises against several uses, including the use of: long words, foreign and technical words, words which might be cut, and popular figures of speech.
However, it is worth noting that some concepts can only be expressed with long words and some of the alternative words which a good writer must use to avoid repetitiveness can contain long words. In some instances, too much cutting brutalises language (as does the use of short words and sentences) and, provided that they are not over-used, similes, metaphors and well-worn phrases give language a vibrant colour.
It is true. Some people write better than others. It is the same for everything we do in life. All the functional areas of human activity have people whose application, either through talent, hard work, or a combination of the two, set them apart from the rest of us. When such people (Muhammad Ali, Bill Clinton, Pele, Nkrumah, Okomfo Anokye, to name a few) are in full flow among mere mortals, you can tell the runners from the also-rans.
However, the rest of us have to function to the best of our limited ability because we form part of the whole. We can do so with a measured degree of success through care, practise and attention to detail. A little bit of effort and we can all write and be read all over the world and on the blessed Ghanaweb.
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