English and the News
On your way out of the Test Post offices, you grab a copy of today's paper. It's a big bundle of newsprint stuffed edge-to-edge with stories the people in this office worked hard on. (And quite a few advertisements, you notice.) You open the newspaper to a random page and read about how the local rail authority is considering moving to a digital signalling system.
A lot of work must have gone into this article, you think. It quotes interviews with three different government officials, as well as the passenger's association and several outside experts. And looking a little more closely, you notice that the writer used the inverted pyramid structure, putting the most pressing information at the start and then expanding on it with further background and context.
On reflection, you suppose you'd kind of taken newspapers for granted until today. Sure, you knew in some sense that all of that text had to have been written by someone, but you hadn't realized just how much effort and care goes into it.
You read the rest of the paper as you walk home.
Return home