Talk:Plain English

message: I am surprised to find there is nothing here to justify the neutrality dispute. I raised this article because it seemed to me silly to have an article for Plain English Campaign but not for Plain English itself. The stub may or may not be excessively POV but I think it would be appropriate for the disputed status to be justified in some way. 'Alan'
:The article seems to be overly praising of Plain English.  Even if it is truthful, it does sound like it is biased.  Compare with others: Simple English Special English.  They seem more balanced.
::This article is too biased towards the "revolution".  Not enough for an NPOV tag, but please tone it down. — Omegatron 04:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's that NPOV. As a fan of... Complex English(?), I find this article extremely dull, dreary and unremarkable. The reading of this article itself seems a fine criticism of the concept. :-P Preston 03:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: After reading the article, I can't tell what Plain English is.  Is it a system regulated by an agency, like Special English and Simplified English?  Is it a consensus of some set of people (who don't have a representing organization)?  Is it a term used to describe writing which follows Strunk and White?  I have no idea. -Piquan 22:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's basically a vaguely defined principle and a writing style that follows that principle.  A similar principle in engineering is the KISS principle.  --Coolcaesar 06:16, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we should add something like that to the article.  Give the reader some context like that.  Anybody want to take a crack at it? -- Piquan 09:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is it? 

message: The second paragraph seemed to talk more about English grammar. Maybe lose this paragraph or rewrite how Latin influence such a complicated writing style? --Editrek 13:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine with me, Editrek. tunes 16:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: The article mentions the Gettysburg Address as Plain English....as far as I can tell, it's quite the opposite.
Original: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Plain:  "Eighty seven years ago our fathers created a country built on liberty and the principle, 'All men are created equal.'"
And it goes on...can I remove it?
Thanks.
TrevorRC 10:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How is the Gettysburg Address plain English 

message: No rule against how-to content there, as long as it's to help users contribute to Wikipedia.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.119.192.165 (talk) 03:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could the "how-to" content be in the WP: namespace? 

message: I've gone through this and found myself deleting most of it. Sorry.
The article is full of OR.
Wikipedia is not the place to suggest what is right, or to write a short unsourced critical essay. On any subject.
This is a potentially fascinating subject area for proper study. It's certainly a notable topic. For example, presenting the research into why latinates are considered "not plain English." You could print sections from George Orwell's essay on latin words.
Is there a preference for Subject-Object-Verb in English? Why? (Don't make it up - find the sources)
All very interesting, and part of the history of the English language.
Presuming "Plain English" is right, or workable, isn't the way to approach it here. There's other sites for that. 
Besides, good intentions don't make good paving stones.
Ddawkins73 (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plain English as a concept: good. Plain English as "good": bad 

message: The article in its present form gives no examples of Plain English, and not even a description that would let the reader decide whether a given passage of text was in Plain English. Thus the article fails the "What" criterion of the Five Ws, by not answering the question, "What is Plain English"? The article could benefit from examples that show un-plain English and their Plain English equivalents, along with analysis of the grammatical constructs that depart from Plain English. --Teratornis (talk) 20:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  No examples 

message: I just removed this sentence from the lead:  It's unsourced and IMO it's dubious. If someone feels it belongs and has a source, I think it should go in the body instead of the lead because, for one, the lead is supposed to summarize the body, not introduce new material, and, more importantly, it needs more explanation as most people will have no idea which words are native Anglo-Saxon and Germanic vs Latin and Greek, so saying that in the lead raises more questions than it answers. —PermStrump(talk) 02:34, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh? You are the vandal. I was curious why this article was not about Germanic purity in English! I would advise you fix your vandalism!2601:806:4301:C100:B8CB:3EB5:3679:D2DE (talk) 00:34, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Linguistic purism 

message: This article:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English states that Plain English is a type of English without using Latin. But that is not what this article says!2601:806:4301:C100:B8CB:3EB5:3679:D2DE (talk) 00:32, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Latin 

message: I feel that, if one were to truly understand the concept of plain English, one must look at some examples and situations where plain English is relevant and important. An ongoing issue in the judicial system of the United States is that jurors, when receiving information on how to determine a verdict on a particular case, do not always fully understand what the judge is saying, and examples of these types of situations are needed in order to show to the reader why this article is important or relevant in today's world. Not only does this article not answer the "what" criterion, but it also does not provide sufficient insight as to "why" as well. 
Tdemeola (talk) 15:51, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Examples 

message: Without any additional facts about its etymology, the current etymology section seems so trivial as to be useless. Also, it doesn't seem like it would be the case that there even would be an interesting piece of etymology, seeing as the etymology is so clear. Given that even wiktionary doesn't have an etymology section for this phrase, it seems entirely pointless. 
--3thanguy7 (talk) 17:02, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the etymology section necessary?