Writing style is so important in good communication. One associates "style" with elegant phrasing, sentence structure and the flow and rhythm of the prose - yet for writers and editors it's more basic than that. At its most elemental, style is about keeping consistency in form.
Do you write 10 000, 10,000, 10000 or 10 thousand or ten thousand? Is it Prof. Smith or Prof Smith? Do you standardize with a 'z' or standardise on an 's'? What's the rule on Usage Of Capital Letters? Did that cost you £50, 50 GBP or fifty quid? Do you italicise (or italicize) titles of books, films, plays etc. - or do you put them in inverted commas? Single or double inverted commas? Would you abbreviate addresses from Street to St. (or St), from Road to Rd. (or Rd)? Would you say "The company is working..." or "the company are working..."? When is correct to write "The team are working on..."? When would it be right to use colloquialisms?
Fortunately, over the centuries, a body of works has emerged, generally published by university presses and newspapers, setting out clear guidelines for writers submitting texts for publication.
In UK English, Oxford and Cambridge universities have long published style guides, and most newspapers have their own too. In US English, the Chicago Guide to Style and the Associated Press Style Guide are the best known.
Over the years, I've used the Economist's style guide (buying the book version back in the 1990s) and have generally abided by its rules on this blog. The Economist style guide is available online and the Johnson blog, linked from my bloglist , often expands on points from the style guide. [Is there a Polish online style guide available anywhere?]
Working for nearly all my life in the world of corporate communication, I notice how few companies have their own style guide for the written word (or even feel the need for a one). Most companies will have clear guidelines about the use of their corporate logos, typography, etc. Yet questions of writing style are often ignored, resulting in foggy communication cluttered with jargon, inconsistency and lengthy sentences.
For corporations operating on a global scale, using different languages for different markets, this problem is exacerbated. Style guides need 'localisation', so that conventions used in the original language (usually English) are neatly and consistently translated into the local language.
Looking at Polish, I can see this is a problem in both directions. Non-native translators of Polish into English will happily translate "Ponad 935 tys. pracowników..." as "Over 953 thousand employees..." rather than simply write "Over 935,000 employees". On my (tidy) desk I have English-language investment brochures published at great cost by local authorities from across Poland. Beautiful photography, graphic design, print (with spot UV varnish) - sadly let down by poor translation and by evident lack of the translators' reference to any English style guide.
From one I read: "Płock is also the seat of the oldest high school in Poland, established in 1180, known as „Małachowianka” and of the Płock Scientific Society, which collection includes valuable manuscripts..." Taxpayers' money spent on an impressive and well-printed brochure would have been far more effectively spent had a tiny fraction of the cost of this publication been spent on running the text past a native English speaker. He or she would have pointed out that in English, opening inverted commas are ranged with the top of the text and not the bottom (as in Polish) and that usage of the relative pronoun 'which' is wrong (should be 'whose'). Hyphen and dash misuse abounds and unusual words ('monodic', 'humanistic') bring the English reader up short.
Avoiding such errors is easy; native English speakers can be found in any larger Polish city, style guides are available free online. It is harder, however, translating corporate brochures into Polish. Now this requires rare skills, especially when no one has yet created an in-house style guide in Polish.
And finally, one bugbear. The word 'sustainable' has become very much in vogue in business English; 'sustainable growth' means that a business can grow long-term, taking into account its effect on society and the environment, its employees and other stakeholders. In short, a company that focuses on sustainable growth is more likely to be around in 50 years time than one focused on maximising short-term return for shareholders. The usual Polish translation for 'sustainable' is zrównoważony, which means 'balanced' rather than 'capable of lasting for a long time'. Given that 'to sustain' is podtrzymywać or utrzymywać, surely 'sustainable growth' would be more accurately translated into Polish as podtrzymywalny wzrost?
Answers please! (Plus any links to Polish style guides gratefully received.)
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5 comments:
As for sustainable growth - one might try to translate it as trwały wzrost, although it's not exactly the same.
Style guide - I'd recommend Poradnia PWN - they also have RSS feed: http://rss.pwn.pl/poradnia.rss.
Sadly, there is a very little awareness for style in Polish language - not only in corporate communication, but in nearly all forms of communication - e.g. when translating into Polish, translators will often translate sentences word for word, in effect producing lots of strange calques. And I know that demand for services of people with very good command of Polish language - to edit any written communication before making it public - is low (and by the way - if you ever need a person like this, let me know, I can recommend someone).
You are so right about other countries needing stylist-proofreaders to give their jobs a once-over before print.
I have an Associated Press Stylebook, Copyright 2007, sitting next to me. I don't use it very often. It's wonderful for telling you things like how to address a public figure, i.e., Chief Justice of the United States, not of the Supreme Court, in case you might slip and type Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court, that would be incorrect.
Words that sound alike but are spelled differently are in there. Once you start thumbing through it, it's more interesting than ever.
I don't wish to come with "the negative waves" but the majority of corporate people I communicate with need lessons in basic English and grammar more than they need a style guide.
It gets worse every year.
Seems like my yesterday's comment didn't get published for some reason. Anyway - check Poradnia językowa PWN if you're looking for a Polish style guide. They also have a RSS feed - I find it very useful, as there are new entries every few days.
As for stylists - proofreaders, the sad thing is that in Poland there is a very little awareness that you need such a person - so for example majority of corporate press releases is poorly written - will it be Polish, English, French, or any other language. Similar thing is with translating into Polish - you can see so many of those awkward sounding Calques, that sometimes to understand the meaning of a sentence, I need to translate it word-for-word back into the original language, and only then it becomes clear.
By the way - if you ever need a good stylist - proofreader in Polish, I can recommend someone.
My wife is a copy editor by profession. I remember the fun that she had when we lived in Eastern Europe. She tried to make a business of helping firms that needed to communicate in English. Either they thought that the 'foreigner' should help for a minimal token fee (cue all the 'you let us down in 1945' type arguments) or they believed that no-one could teach them a thing (as 'what do foreigners know about our nation?'). We got the feeling that the enlightened entrepreneurs had long emigrated.
In the UK 'sustrainable' is put around way too much as a bulls**t word (like 'luxury' coach) meaning nothing and unrelated to the business of the firm in question but designed to give a warm cozy feeling. I'd rather see truth of intent than accurate transpation of PR platitudes.
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