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I think this is rubbish advice.

I'd much rather we all spoke on first attempt like we write after thoughtful review.

I'm reminded of the (gradual) removal of all Latin from British legislation with a view to making it more 'accessible', at the obvious expense of the concise preciseness that the language afford: "with having changed the things requiring changing" is rather less economical than "mutatis mutandis".

In a slightly facetious sort of way, I also think the "thanks to .. for reading drafts of this" is rather amusing.



I was with you all the way up to your example, and then I didn't know what mutatis mutandis meant and I changed my mind.

It's obviously a good thing that normal people be enabled to understand as much as possible of the laws that govern them, even at the expense of a little wasted ink. (Unfortunately in British law being able to read the legislation often won't get you very far anyway, because of case law).


> "thanks to .. for reading drafts of this"

What's the Latin for that?


Ha! Mine's not strong enough to say, though I suspect it would only be 3-4 words ('with-thanks-to .. for-the-reading-of' if you see what I mean).

I didn't mean that sentence amused me for uneconomical English, but that it was funny to think about a piece titled 'write like you talk' going through multiple draft stages.


Why is that funny to you when he suggested putting your writing through draft stages to try achieve the "write like you talk" style?


Because when you talk you do not (and indeed cannot) do that.

(I would argue preparing a speech does not count, since you are then by definition talking like you have written).


The point is that your written text reads like someone talking. It makes sense to review the text for this aim.




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