English as a first language: We have all heard of US and UK English. And Canadian, Australian, South African and New Zealand varieties. But what… Read More »How many Englishes are there and which is the right one?
In UN and other institutional texts, precision matters. Yet some of the most common problems arise not from complex terminology but from pairs or sets… Read More »Beware of confusing words in UN texts
Report writing is a formal task requiring careful command of tense shifts, use of correct structures following reporting verbs, and careful use of reporting verbs. … Read More »Tenses in reports and minutes of meetings
Prune your writing – remove the redundant and replace wordy expressions with short ones. Here are some things to avoid: Remember the drafter’s adage: Voltaire:… Read More »Eliminate wordy expressions and empty phrases
English follows the “subject – verb – object” word order in sentences that sound natural. All of the Plain English campaigns recommend you adopt this… Read More »For easy reading, keep your subject and main verb close together
In both UK and US styles, there is a difference between how we say and how we write dates. Compare the spoken versus the… Read More »How to write dates in UK and US English
As a general rule, United States (US) writers capitalize more than British (UK) writers. The United Nations uses UK style. Thus, in a heading, a… Read More »Use of capital letters in headings and news headlines
Most agencies in the United Nations system use UK spelling (based on the Concise Oxford Dictionary). There are a number of differences in spelling between… Read More »Some differences in spelling between UK and US English
‘that’ can have several different functions in a clause: When ‘that’ is a defining relative pronoun, it does not take a comma before it.(In British… Read More »Don’t confuse your ‘thats’
I often advise writers to avoid so-called weak words, and here’s a quote I often use: “Substitute ‘damn‘ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’”,… Read More »Words to avoid to improve your writing