Language on ITTF site

NextLevel · Mar 12, 2018

Sali said:
I asked my uncle who live in USA for 40 years (his wife is native american) and have more problems with polish language now after these years. Anyway I sent him these words and he does not know any of them.

The Indians and many other former British colonies are worse than Ian Marshall in their use of elaborate English words. Americans are noted for their simplicity given the success of Hemingway and the advice of William Strunk and EB White in the often advocated "Elements of Style", which made simple writing a virtue.

For me, anyone who lives in England or a land where speaking good Queen's English is respected may not like Marshall's style, but will find it hardly anything unusual. Using hackneyed phrases repeatedly in articles is what makes you know them upon sight. It's the kind of journalism I grew up with. And of course, Ian Marshall probably grew up with what the people I grew up reading grew up with.

Ioiettino · Mar 12, 2018

NextLevel said:
The Indians and many other former British colonies are worse than Ian Marshall in their use of elaborate English words. Americans are noted for their simplicity given the success of Hemingway and the advice of William Strunk and EB White in the often advocated "Elements of Style", which made simple writing a virtue.

For me, anyone who lives in England or a land where speaking good Queen's English is respected may not like Marshall's style, but will find it hardly anything unusual. Using hackneyed phrases repeatedly in articles is what makes you know them upon sight. It's the kind of journalism I grew up with. And of course, Ian Marshall probably grew up with what the people I grew up reading grew up with.

You could have been born in France... Think about it!!

I love flowery language though. And yes, Indian English from older educated people can be some of the best ("rascally business" from a guy who meant "taking a d*mp in the woods" still gets me after many years). I hope this doesn't come across as obnoxious stereotyping or anything - the chosen example could be in very poor taste, outside of context; it didn't feel that way when he said it -, but on occasion the use of euphemisms and metaphors could be worth the conversation on its own. And yes, very funny - in a good way.
Again, this is not to sound patronising or anything... Darn, this thread is making me feel self-conscious.

Tinykin · Mar 12, 2018

NextLevel said:
The Indians and many other former British colonies are worse than Ian Marshall in their use of elaborate English words. Americans are noted for their simplicity given the success of Hemingway and the advice of William Strunk and EB White in the often advocated "Elements of Style", which made simple writing a virtue.

For me, anyone who lives in England or a land where speaking good Queen's English is respected may not like Marshall's style, but will find it hardly anything unusual. Using hackneyed phrases repeatedly in articles is what makes you know them upon sight. It's the kind of journalism I grew up with. And of course, Ian Marshall probably grew up with what the people I grew up reading grew up with.

Yep.
One of the reasons for the international success of American TV is that producers were instructed that the language spoken must be able to be understood by the typical 12 year old. This was the opposite of what occured here in England where most of the film and radio output was aimed at the educated middle class.

zeio · Mar 12, 2018

24 hours have passed and no one has said this, so here goes.

People actually read their articles?

p.s.
Some folks hold the view that table tennis has been dumbed down ever since Y2K. Perhaps the ITTF should dumb down their writing styles as well?

JHB · Mar 12, 2018

Hmm..... "Scintillating" is arguably not an everyday word, although most native English speakers would understand it. The other two words quoted are pretty normal English though. Surely though the same problem arises whatever your second, non-native language happens to be, if you are reading something written by an educated native speaker ? You would have to immerse yourself totally in a language for a long period of time before you reach the point where you never need to use a dictionary.

Herbert · Mar 12, 2018

darucla said:
None of these words would be regarded as unusual or archaic to any native English speaker. Unless their only reading material was the Sun newspaper... What that means for non-NES is moot. But I am inclined to oppose dumbing down of the language on principal. I read a couple of other languages, and expect to need to look up some words, or infer meaning from context. The ones that get me worried are more likely to be slang than difficult or long.

I don't know where you are from but people from Britain are in general the worst at speaking other languages and often underestimate the difficulty of learning another language. It's not just looking up a few words if it is English written like this.

pgpg · Mar 12, 2018

None of the words listed by OP (and a lot of others I ran across in these articles) pose a problem for me, that is I do not need to consult the dictionary to get their meaning. Yes, non-native speaker here, but lived in US for 25+ years by now and read plenty of 'serious' articles, so vocabulary and comprehension is not an issue, I think.

Still can't stand his writing style - at first thought it was written by non-native speaker, then considered it to be a weird machine translation experiment, now starting to think that he just might have some non-obvious internal writing rules: "I must use these specific words at least 5 times in my article".

Also - being regarded as an 'Archive' of TT and having a lot of experience in the field does not really guarantee ability to write well. If he speaks like he writes, I'd be hitting MUTE button asap.

Sorry for the rant.

/getting off the soapbox

mart1nandersson · Mar 12, 2018

darucla said:
None of these words would be regarded as unusual or archaic to any native English speaker. Unless their only reading material was the Sun newspaper... What that means for non-NES is moot. But I am inclined to oppose dumbing down of the language on principal. I read a couple of other languages, and expect to need to look up some words, or infer meaning from context. The ones that get me worried are more likely to be slang than difficult or long.

The target audience of ittf.com is hardly "native English speakers" especially since TT isn't that massive of a sport in any part of the commonwealth nor in North America. You have two options English or Chinese. I find it quite bizarre that the site isn't translated into German (a language that I'm way more comfortable with compared to English), Japanese or French all being countries where competitive TT is way more popular compared to the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Just my 0.02$

Ioiettino · Mar 12, 2018

mart1nandersson said:
The target audience of ittf.com is hardly "native English speakers" especially since TT isn't that massive of a sport in any part of the commonwealth nor in North America. You have two options English or Chinese. I find it quite bizarre that the site isn't translated into German (a language that I'm way more comfortable with compared to English), Japanese or French all being countries where competitive TT is way more popular compared to the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Just my 0.02$

Imagine the number of threads similar to this one, the day one of these languages gets chosen over the others (and even if you were to do all three... way to alienate all the rest)!

Also, it's becoming part of TT folklore at this point and I wouldn't want it any different, but if ITTV interpreting is anything to go by, you may as well ask for the moon on a stick.

zzzuppp · Mar 12, 2018

I'm not sure that it's Ian Marshall who's 'responsible'. Much as I admire Marshall's enthusiasm for the game and knowledge, he tends to write the most turgid and repetitive prose that takes all the excitement out of the game. Next time he writes an article, count how many times he writes 'it was' (as in 'it was parity', 'it was deuce' etc) and how often he repeats phrases between articles.

The ITTF interviewed and hired a few more writers of articles last year, so these days Marshall gets a rest every now and then. Sometimes their articles are anonymous. At least one of the new authors is a much more interesting writer than Ian Marshall.

But, going back to OP's original complaint of using more complex English words, what is wrong with expressing yourself using the full possibility of a rich language such as English? Is there some rule to dictate that the ITTF website should be dumbed down to suit whoever comes along to read it? Surely our game deserves the highest level of writing. When zeio says 'People actually read their articles?', well yes, I do, for one. I'd almost rather read a well-written description of a great match which reflected its excitement, than listen to a commentator trotting out hackneyed superlatives like 'awesome', 'magic' etc during a live game. I don't mean Adam Bobrow - Bobrow is an asset to our sport.

berndtjgmann · Mar 12, 2018

Awesome post, zzz. Iconic, magical. Scintillating.

Baal · Mar 13, 2018

zzzuppp said:
I'm not sure that it's Ian Marshall who's 'responsible'. Much as I admire Marshall's enthusiasm for the game and knowledge, he tends to write the most turgid and repetitive prose that takes all the excitement out of the game. Next time he writes an article, count how many times he writes 'it was' (as in 'it was parity', 'it was deuce' etc) and how often he repeats phrases between articles.

The ITTF interviewed and hired a few more writers of articles last year, so these days Marshall gets a rest every now and then. Sometimes their articles are anonymous. At least one of the new authors is a much more interesting writer than Ian Marshall.

But, going back to OP's original complaint of using more complex English words, what is wrong with expressing yourself using the full possibility of a rich language such as English? Is there some rule to dictate that the ITTF website should be dumbed down to suit whoever comes along to read it? Surely our game deserves the highest level of writing. When zeio says 'People actually read their articles?', well yes, I do, for one. I'd almost rather read a well-written description of a great match which reflected its excitement, than listen to a commentator trotting out hackneyed superlatives like 'awesome', 'magic' etc during a live game. I don't mean Adam Bobrow - Bobrow is an asset to our sport.

I like good writing but remember that the first lettrr in ITTF stands for International. They don't post in very many languages and for a lot of readers English is a second language. On the other hand, long Latin-derived words aren't the problem. It is short Anglo-Saxon words that aren't used a lot that are the most problematic for international readers. "Thwart" would be a good example.

Between wife and TT clubmates and co-workers, I am around non-native English speakers 24/7.

Atas Newton · Mar 13, 2018

Table tennis, for all intents and purposes, is an East Asian sport with a considerable drop of a very few European contries, namely Deutschland, Sverige and La France. Add a little bit of Eastern European România, Россия and Беларусь for flavor. None of these have anything to do with Queen's English, ignoring it seems short sighted. And let me complain about Ian Marshall one more time, because why not: he may know every imaginable piece of trivia about table tennis but he sure does his best not to show it when he commentates. Adam Bobrow will tell you the player's chinese nickname, what he's like off the court, why he changed his rubber the last tournament, etc. The stuff you would otherwise never get to know. Ian Marshall will tell you the game score and that a sequence of 2 serves will follow. Last time he noted the "very clear" voice of the umpire calling the score and repeated 3 times how flat Miu Hirano's palm was when she served. Laughable. Man's past it, he sounds bored of table tennis.

Andy44 · Mar 13, 2018

Atas Newton said:
Table tennis, for all intents and purposes, is an East Asian sport with a considerable drop of a very few European contries, namely Deutschland, Sverige and La France. Add a little bit of Eastern European România, Россия and Беларусь for flavor. None of these have anything to do with Queen's English...

But they do, not as a first language but as a shared second language. If you're counting by country, English is by far the most common second language in the world (55 countries, with French a distant second at 14 countries), which makes it a logical choice for international sports commentary. I've been told (and would be interested if someone could confirm or deny this) that it's fairly common for international business meetings in East Asia to be conducted in English, where it's sometimes the only shared language among all the participants.

Atas Newton · Mar 13, 2018

Yes, a lot of people have English as their second language, but of those people only a small percentage would know what "thwarted" is, which is precisely what this thread pointed out. Simple English would be perfectly fine of course, I don't suggest ITTF should write articles in Chinese.

Andy44 · Mar 13, 2018

Atas Newton said:
Yes, a lot of people have English as their second language, but of those people only a small percentage would know what "thwarted" is, which is precisely what this thread pointed out. Simple English would be perfectly fine of course, I don't suggest ITTF should write articles in Chinese.

Got it. Should've read the thread forwards rather than backwards. Thwarted does seem like a difficult word on its own, but maybe much easier in context.

Sali · Mar 13, 2018

Good writer is the person who knows how to write, have great experience and knowledge. But most of all knows who is his reader. Since ITTF is international website not english one he should write Simple language to attract readers

zzzuppp · Mar 13, 2018

Sali said:
Good writer is the person who knows how to write, have great experience and knowledge. But most of all knows who is his reader. Since ITTF is international website not english one he should write Simple language to attract readers

I think it depends whether it's mere reportage, or something more expressive. A writer should be allowed to do his job however he likes: an editor is the person who might want to correct his report for publication.

I read other websites that are in languages I don't understand and stick them into Google translate, which makes translations that are mostly grotesque but understandable. It might be an idea for the ITTF to have a built-in Google translator - as, for example, the Russian TT website http://def.kondopoga.ru does - so you can read the page in your own language (after a fashion). It does seem ridiculous that ITTF's website only offers two language possibilities. But then we all know how much work remains to be done to make the ITTF website truly reflective of the range and scope of the sport.

Sali · Mar 13, 2018

zzzuppp said:
I think it depends whether it's mere reportage, or something more expressive. A writer should be allowed to do his job however he likes: an editor is the person who might want to correct his report for publication.

I read other websites that are in languages I don't understand and stick them into Google translate, which makes translations that are mostly grotesque but understandable. It might be an idea for the ITTF to have a built-in Google translator - as, for example, the Russian TT website http://def.kondopoga.ru does - so you can read the page in your own language (after a fashion). It does seem ridiculous that ITTF's website only offers two language possibilities. But then we all know how much work remains to be done to make the ITTF website truly reflective of the range and scope of the sport.

That could be it, but remember this writer is employed by ITTF or ITTF worker to do the right job. If you go international you can choose multiple languages and translate all news everyday by pro translators or google (which is surely not pro) or choose international language which is mainly English. Once you do that you must adapt to your readers, and the only way to do that is simplicity. Adam Bobrow use simple language which we all understand and I think it is more the enough to express the idea.

Baal · Mar 13, 2018

The ITTF should probably post their articles in English, Chinese and Spanish for maximum coverage with the least effort.

By the way, not all British writing is complex and not all American writing is simple. Those choices are personal more than anything else.

After you have spent a lot of time speaking to people who are not very fluent in English, you learn to speak slowly and to keep your sentences understandable.

Probably though there are not that many people who know the sport and who are even interested in writing for the ITTF.

Language on ITTF site

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