plain

plain

The reader lacks your context — the curse of knowledge, not word count, is why prose fails. Write as if orienting someone's gaze to a thing they haven't seen yet.

The spine — Orwell, 1946

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

The sweep — named defects Orwell's rules only gesture at

Defect	Fix	Example
Zombie noun — an action embalmed as a noun (-tion, -ment, -ance)	Verb it	"perform validation" → "validate"
Buried doer — abstract subject, actor missing or in a by-phrase	Doer as subject, action as verb	"the fix was applied" → "I fixed it"
Negative form	State it positively	"not different" → "the same"
Hedge — "somewhat", "fairly", "arguably", "should probably"	Cut it or commit	"should probably work" → "works" — or name when it fails
Abstract where concrete exists	Name the thing	"the relevant file" → "config.ts"
One sentence, two ideas	Split it	—

Technical terms: swap in an everyday word only where precision survives; otherwise keep the term — rule 5 yields to rule 6.

The caps — ASD-STE100

Simplified Technical English adds what Orwell leaves to judgment: hard limits. Caps over taste — "cut what you can" ends in negotiation; a word count ends in a number.

Cap	Limit
Sentence	20 words for an instruction, 25 for anything else
Paragraph	6 sentences, one topic
Instruction	one action per sentence
Noun cluster	3 nouns — break longer ones with "of"/"for"
Term	one per concept — reuse the exact word, never a synonym
Point	made once — no restating in other words, no summary that repeats the body

The 900-word STE dictionary stays out: the technical-terms rule above already governs word choice.

Before delivering

One sweep of the draft against the spine, the sweep, and the caps. Rule 6 breaks every tie: clarity beats compliance.