How to write good English

Though the internet would have been classed as science fiction in those days, this business has its origins in 1885 when Archie Kenyon was born in Wray, near Lancaster. Mass communication at the time was the sole preserve of newspapers: radio didn’t arrive until at least ten years later and television was not generally available until the early 1950s.

Archie was a lifelong journalist, starting on the Gloucestershire Echo before progressing to the Yorkshire Post. In 1943 he was elected President of the National Union of Journalists and later became President of the International Organisation of Journalists.

He was my Grandfather, my mother’s father, and I’m mighty proud of him. If I have an aptitude for writing, I inherited it from him. Though a dreadful pedant (what writer isn’t?), his goal was clear communication before all else: he simply believed that you could not get a clear message across unless the spelling, punctuation, grammar and syntax were faultless. Any failings in those areas would annoy the educated reader and distract them from what was being said. What he would have made of txt spk I can’t imagine.

At the notional age of 125, his involvement in the business today is pretty much hands-off, though his influence is as strong as ever. Spiritually, it’s still his business, even though I do all the work.

For myself, Martin Helm, I just love writing. I’m almost as big a pedant as Archie, though I recognise that “educated” means something quite different nowadays than it did then.

Writing good English isn’t particularly easy, but perseverance rewards you with a fluent style.

Good English may be harder to write, but it is definitely easier to read.

That’s communication!