When it comes to the English language and its conventions, systems, and rules, it’s not surprising that people new to the English language have so much difficulty in both understanding and learning it.

If you have a look at the European Commission Directorate-General for Translation’s English Style Guide, you’ll probably be quite overwhelmed to see just how arbitrary so many things are, even when they’ve been explained by a committee of experts. We know that this document is an essential reference for any person who may be composing a work in English for publication or use within the European union, but some of the choices are quite baffling. These are just two of the examples that we found within this style guide; so of course these are just the tip of the iceberg –

The Use of ‘-ize’ Instead of ‘ise’

For many people who’ve been raised with English in the United States tradition where the suffix ‘-ize’ is taught all the time, it can be very difficult to understand the British tradition of using ‘-ise’ even when the sound is obviously a ‘z’ sound, and not forgetting that the Greek roots where the words are derived from were formed with a zeta - “ζ”. In any case, the Style Guide is very clear in saying that there are generally 40 exceptions in the British English where ‘-ize’ is preferred – even though we noticed that it doesn’t list any.

Split Infinitives

This is probably one of the most confusing aspects of English, because there’s no seemingly justifiable grammatical basis for it be incorrect to split the infinitive; meaning including an adverb between ‘to’ and the infinitive. For example – ‘to bravely go where no man has gone before’. It’s claimed by some that this has occurred because infinitives were never split in Latin, so therefore they shouldn’t be split in English. Strange reasoning, considering English is not derived from Latin, so there’s no earthly reason why their conventions should be similar; particularly when Latin infinitives were just one word and therefore logically can’t be split.

According to the Style Guide, writers should avoid that practice, and one wonders what is the justification for this. It’s possible to create sentences that are insightful and provocative (if you’re a skilled writer) by using a split infinitive when you wouldn’t be able to have the same effect without it. And if you’re a bad writer, trying to avoid specific conventions is not going to make much difference.

Changing subjects just a little, and referring to translation issues now, Annex 2 – Notes on Belgium – is an interesting read on when one should leave names in Dutch or French. Fellow translators, perhaps you would like to have a look at this Style Guide, then perhaps you can advise us on how we can come to some clear and concise language guidelines so that, as translators, we can work quickly and effectively without having to worry about exactly which community we’re working for!