My writing is pretty conversational as well. It's been years since I have engaged in scholarly or technical writing. The writing I do at work is marketing oriented often. There is usually some kind of story I am trying to get across. So I would be hard put to churn out some dry stuffy prose. Recently I even referred to the company as "one of the best outfits around." I was surprised that it passed muster, but this is the West, where such idioms are acceptable!
An important and time-consuming aspect of my work is writing responses to Ministerials. For my American friends, no, that doesn't mean ministers of religion. A Minister here in Oz, as indeed in the UK, is a politician, elected to public office.
A Ministerial is generated when a member of the public writes to their local Member of Parliament (MP). Such letters can cover any conceivable issue. Alas, however, they are usually complaints. In my industry, Health, some of the subject matter can be quite distressing, if not outright tragic.
So, the member of public writes to their local MP, who redirects it to the appropriate Minister whose portfolio it covers; i.e., in my case, the New South Wales Minister for Health. The Minister's office then sends the letter to the administrative office (me) where the staff member being complained about is employed; usually a public hospital. In consultation with our staff member, we write a response to the Ministerial, which will be sent back to the Minister for his signature, to be sent to the original author of the complaint. If it is a particularly critical or contentious issue, it will be read by the Minister in Parliament.
But back to the issue at hand. One would expect the writing style of such Ministerials to be extremely stilted and pedantic. It is, in fact, just the opposite. The two primary rules of Ministerial writing are:
1. Keep it simple, stupid!
2. Write it so the issue will be resolved.
When we forward letters to our clinical staff for response, their initial drafts often come back filled with medical terminology and pompous clinical gobbledegook. We amend them so the member of public who wrote the complaint will understand.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that IMHO so-called
good English does not necessarily have to be an intellectual treatise that no-one except a select few academics can understand.
IMHO the primary purpose of good English is to communicate and be understood,
not to try to give the impression that "I'm smarter than you."
