Well written web sites don't just happen, they are designed and engineered. You don't just run
spell checker through text and consider job done. You need to review words, and examine them carefully. Put yourself in place of your prospects and customers. How will they perceive and respond to what is written? Euphemisms
Review your text for euphemisms and consider rewording them for clearer meanings. A euphemism is a milder or vaguer word or phrase used in place of one that might seem too harsh or embarrassing in a particular context. The commonest subjects for euphemisms are bodily functions (to relieve yourself), sexual activity (to make love), death (to pass away), economics (downsizing), and violence (to do away with).
We all need to resort to this kind of language in order to respect people's sensitivities, and our own. But there are two kinds of euphemisms that are questionable:
• euphemisms that blur meaning or cause confusion (e.g. cloakroom for toilet).
• euphemisms that attempt to show unpleasant activities in a more positive light (e.g. ethnic cleansing for wholesale killing of peoples).
Some euphemisms have even become official clichés, e.g. helping Police with their enquiries (= under interrogation and imminent arrest). Readers outside your locality often confuse euphemisms. So check your site carefully for such ambiguities.
Confusable Meanings
There are many pairs of words, which are similar in form and meaning and are often confused. For example affect and effect are often confused. Affect means to cause a change in, where as effect means to bring about. Always check your site carefully for such words (its/it's and to oo are classics).
If you would like a free list of commonly confused pairs of words and their meanings, send me an email at grant.mcnamara@translateme.co.nz.
Tautology
Tautology is repetition of same idea or meaning in a phrase or sentence, as in free gift (all gifts are free), a new innovation, and to return again. Some tautologies are contained within a small group of words based around noun, for example future prospects, past history, general consensus. We use tautologies mainly in speech, but if we are not careful they creep into our written text. Such words can often be dropped because their meanings are contained in other words within sentence. Using tautologies in written text is not usually good style and you should avoid it.
Formal and Informal Language
The different contexts and levels of formality in which English is used are called registers. At a broad level, English, like all languages, varies from formal and technical to informal and casual. Register also takes account of various types of communication, such as conversation, informal writing, journalism and broadcasting (formal writing includes essays, speeches and academic books).
In conversation, for example, use of personal pronouns I and you is relatively high, and contradictions such as I've, you're an don't predominate over fuller forms. And in conversation slang and colloquial words occur regularly. In more formal writing, colloquialisms are uncommon, pronoun one is more likely to be used than you, upon is likely to be used as well as on, and more formal words such as ascertain and desirous are likely to occur.
Each mode of writing and speaking calls for its own different kind of language. In its most formal register, a machine might be said to be malfunctioning; in a neutral or everyday register it might be described as not working, and at informal extreme it will be said to be broken or kaput. Formal words are usual in instructions and notices; alight (from a bus or train), conveyance (for vehicle), enquire (rather than ask), notify (rather than tell), and select (rather than choose). In more general contexts, purchase is more formal than buy, edifice more formal than building, endeavour than try, and purloin than steal. The language of technical writing has its own terminology; for example gravid, meaning pregnant, occurs only in medicine and biology. Most of these formal words can be turned on their heads and made to look silly (Do you really live in this edifice?).
