BEFORE taking up a workable strategy for banishing officious stock phrases from our written and spoken English, I am first presenting a chart of the most irksome 33 stock phrases that creep into our memos and reports, with us not even realizing it. In 2013, while running a series of columns discouraging the use of very officious stock phrases in English, I received a very illuminating response from a Tanzania-based Forum member, Mwita Chacha:He wrote:"I agree that the best way to effectively get our ideas across is by making our sentences as precise as possible. In degree of formality, the English language register has six categories: very formal, rigid, bureaucratic language; formal, ceremonious, carefully precise language; neutral, objective, impartial language; informal, casual language; very informal, very casual language; and intimate, very personal and private language. It just so happens that over the centuries, the legal profession has developed a variety of English that's pejoratively called legalese, an officious language that can be roughly classified between very formal and formal language. Read this essay and listen to its voice recording in The Manila Times: "Avoiding very officious stock phrases in our English – 2"Next, Oct. 19, 2023: Using appositives for texture and depthVisit Jose Carillo's English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com.

Source: Manila Times October 11, 2023 17:04 UTC