{"id":628,"date":"2012-08-16T10:51:15","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T22:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=628"},"modified":"2012-08-17T07:32:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T19:32:00","slug":"if-you-mean-what-you-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=628","title":{"rendered":"If you mean what you say \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you mean what you say, why not write what you say?<\/p>\n

I used to work with a woman who talked a good talk.\u00a0 In fact, she talked a brilliant talk.\u00a0 Her thoughts were organised.\u00a0 Her words were well chosen.\u00a0 And her enthusiasm was infectious.<\/p>\n

But, more often than not, when she came to put her talk down on paper, it all turned to custard.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way \u2013 maybe at primary school, maybe at university, maybe just in the school of life \u2013 she seems to have picked up the notion that spoken English and written English are two entirely different languages.\u00a0 In her mind, the relationship between spoken English and written English seems to have been akin to the relationship between Welsh and Swahili.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of her recently when I came across an old copy of one of her missives.\u00a0 In response to someone who had offered a suggestion, she wrote:<\/p>\n

The idea which you have submitted does, superficially, appear to have some merit, notwithstanding that the Committee may consider that it lies outside the agreed scope of the current deliberations.\u00a0 Nevertheless, I will endeavour to place a request before the Committee seeking that the Committee makes time when an opportunity arises to give your idea due consideration in a timely and appropriate manner.<\/p>\n

Flabby, bureaucratic gobbledygook.<\/p>\n

And yet I\u2019m pretty sure that, had she responded in spoken English, she would have said something like: \u2018That\u2019s an interesting idea.\u00a0 I\u2019ll ask the committee to consider it.\u2019<\/p>\n

So why didn\u2019t she write that?\u00a0 It would have said what she needed to say.\u00a0 And it would have been so<\/em> much easier to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you mean what you say, why not write what you say? I used to work with a woman who talked a good talk.\u00a0 In fact, she talked a brilliant talk.\u00a0 Her thoughts were organised.\u00a0 Her words were well chosen.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}