General Comment on Warm-Up 3

The task this time was to turn spoken English into formal, written English. I used the word 'colloquial' a lot when I was commenting on your generally excellent answers. A colloquial word or phrase is one which is used in speech, but not often in formal writing. The words 'buck' and 'quid' for 'dollar' and 'pound' are examples of colloquialisms: everyone knows what they mean (so they aren't slang), but your contract of employment won't express your salary in 'quid'. In the inspector's comments, there were several colloquialism, such as 'diggers' and 'hardhats'. It's difficult to know which word is colloquial and which isn't … but that's why you're studying a course with feedback from teachers and tutors!

Good formal language also ought to be precise (which is why there are so many different words in formal English to express all the nuances). A couple of common problems were the differences between rules and regulations, and between safety and security.

Rules are followed on a voluntary basis (if, for example, you want to be a member of a club … or if you want to stay on as an employee of a company!). Regulations, on the other hand, have the force of law. You can thus be disqualified from a sporting event for a breach of the rules, but you could be sent to prison for a breach of the regulations.

Newspeak

In 1984, his novel about a totalitarian future, George Orwell introduced Newspeak - a new language which would make independent thought impossible. Management gurus have invented a newspeak too (take a look at this Dilbert cartoon):

As you can see, 'problem' is one of those words managers like to avoid, in favour of 'issues' - or even 'opportunities'. The problem is that 'issues' can't be 'corrected' or 'fixed' (the way 'problems' can) - they have to be 'addressed'!

Official Names

It's always a good idea to visit an organisation's web site to see what their official translations of various Swedish terms are. The 'arbetsmiljölag' is officially called the 'Work Environment Act'.

Big and Get

These are two colloquial words which ought to be avoided in formal documents (wherever possible).

Get could be obtain, become or receive.

Big becomes 'large', if you're talking about physical size, or 'great' or 'major', if you're talking about importance.

Finally, a bit of grammar …

Both Swedish and English have 'count' and 'uncount' nouns. The distinction is between nouns which refer to things which can be split up into separate items or chunks, such as chairs or boyfriends (!) and nouns which refer to general phenomena, such as attention, machinery or love.

In English uncount nouns only have singular forms and don't have to have words like 'a' and 'the' in front of them (though they can if you want them to). That's why you can't write *the equipment are …* And 'machines' are separate items, but 'machinery' is a general phenomenon, so you write 'the machines are …' but 'the machinery is …'