In order to maintain a dactylic or anapestic rhythm, that is, a rhythm of three or more beats, it is almost essential to use Latinate, polysyllabic words. Short Anglo-Saxon words stress the first syllable, forcing a one- or two-beat foot.

Therefore, any use of complex rhythms goes directly against Orwells' command, to "never use a long word where a short one will do." White, similarly, argues for Anglo-Saxon words when available.

But such South Asian writers are doing the right thing, in terms of true "plain language." If the point of language is communication, then note: any number of studies show that a regular rhythm improves understanding, speed of reading, and, as important, retention. This could be a critical advantage in, say, a technical communication. Whether we know it or not, we all sound out what we read, if only in the mind's ear.

And so sound qualities are a part of clear language. A steadily rhythmic passage with Latinate words could well be easier to understand than a passage of shorter or more familiar words with no rhythm. And a multi-syllabic rhythm may actually allow faster data transfer.

Any plain language practitioner should remember this, regardless of whom he is writing for; but especially when writing for other cultures. Many other cultures more deeply value and attend to sound qualities and rhythms of speech than Anglos often do.

Performativity

Another aspect of writing easily overlooked in international contexts is its ritual use. Once again, this is a matter of English emerging from an essential Protestant culture, in which ritual is held of little value.

Yet it is not only Catholics who are sensitive to the ritual use of language, its "performativity." In the Hebrew scriptures, God creates with words; and one must not, in turn, speak the name of G-d. Almost any hunter-gatherer society is deeply sensitive to language as ritual. So is Oriental culture, thanks to Confucius.

This is something we in North America are unlikely to see, and it creates misunderstanding.

A typical dispatch from Beijing serves as our example. It makes us want to laugh: Lee Teng-Hui, it asserts, is a "rat running across the street with everybody shouting 'smack it.'" His name stinks. He is a "fake president," "the number one scum of the nation," and, moreover, a "deformed test tube baby cultivated in the political laboratory of hostile anti-Chinese forces." ⁽⁵⁾

Golly. Important information, right?