In another thread ...


Ok, first of all, Jan, your English is fine and actually getting slowly better all the time from what I can tell. I am always amazed at you guys who can speak more than one language.

Your comment, however, made me start thinking about the best way to communicate on this forum. Clearly, the English skills of the people here are all over the map .. from those who can barely express themselves to those who use fancy words like "reflexively" (automatic, like a reflex) and "orthography" (spelling) and even <*gasp*> "anthropomorphic metaphor" (anthropomorphic metaphor).

In some cases, the guys are probably using these fancy words just to show off ("reflexively", for example). In others, the fancy word is the only one that works ("anthropomorphic metaphor"). And in still others, a word that a non-native speaker finds fancy may not be fancy at all to a native speaker ("dismiss").

So a question, especially for the non-native English speakers: In an international forum like this, is it better for everyone to simply write as they normally do, on the assumption that those less skilled in English will be challenged to learn and improve? Or would it be more helpful in general to "dumb it down" a little bit and strive for simpler language, in the interest of clarity?

-- Russ