Re: British or American spelling in IETF docs

On Fri, 14 Aug 2026, [email protected] wrote:

> The IETF requires and uses English for technical discussion in
> meetings, in working groups, in working-group documents, and in
> anything considered for publication. The requirement for consistent
> use of English does simplify immediate communications overhead and
> makes for clear discussion of documents in a single language,
> although that does also clearly discriminate against, disrespect, and
> exclude non-English speakers by being incomprehensible to them.
> Commitment to English also disadvantages and is inimical to those
> from more diverse backgrounds, who lack fluency in or comfort with
> that language, and who must shoulder the long-term burden and
> difficulties of added effort in communications.

I let chatgpt comment on the readability of this text, and I spit out the 
below analysis, and also at the bottom, a re-write into easier to 
understand english.

The text is quite difficult to read, even for a fluent English speaker 
without an academic/policy background. For a non-native speaker, it is 
unnecessarily demanding.

The first sentence is fine:

“The IETF requires and uses English for technical discussion in meetings…”

It is long, but structurally straightforward. The reader understands: the 
IETF conducts its work in English.

The difficulty rises sharply in the second and especially third sentences. 
There are several reasons:

Long clauses with multiple logical turns.
“although that does also clearly discriminate against, disrespect, and 
exclude…” forces the reader to retain the first proposition while 
processing three strong verbs and then an explanation.
Uncommon or academic vocabulary.
The biggest offender is “inimical to”. Many native English speakers will 
know roughly what it means, but it is not ordinary modern prose. “Harmful 
to,” “hostile to,” or “works against” would be much easier.
Abstract noun-heavy phrasing.
“long-term burden and difficulties of added effort in communications” is 
much harder than something like “must spend more time and effort 
communicating.”
Redundancy.
“disadvantages and is inimical to” largely says the same thing twice.
“long-term burden and difficulties of added effort” similarly piles 
several overlapping ideas together.
Some awkward semantic choices.
“disrespect … non-English speakers by being incomprehensible to them” is 
unusual. A language requirement can exclude or disadvantage someone; 
calling the incomprehensibility itself “disrespect” requires a more 
argumentative interpretation.

The last sentence is particularly dense:

“Commitment to English also disadvantages and is inimical to those from 
more diverse backgrounds, who lack fluency in or comfort with that 
language, and who must shoulder the long-term burden and difficulties of 
added effort in communications.”

A reasonably fluent non-native reader might have to parse that sentence 
twice. Someone with practical rather than academic English may get the 
general point but stumble over “inimical,” “shoulder the … burden,” “added 
effort in communications,” and the nested relative clauses.

There is also an interesting mismatch with the subject matter: a passage 
arguing that English creates an accessibility barrier is itself written in 
a particularly academic, institutional variety of English. It would be 
much more accessible as, for example:

The IETF uses English for technical discussions, meetings, working groups, 
documents, and publications. Using one language makes communication 
simpler and helps everyone discuss the same documents. However, it also 
disadvantages people who are not fluent or comfortable in English. They 
may need to spend considerably more time and effort understanding 
discussions and expressing their own ideas.

That preserves essentially the same informational content while probably 
reducing the required English proficiency by several levels.

So I would characterize the original as grammatically competent but 
stylistically overcomplicated. It reads more like policy/academic prose 
written for other policy writers than text intended for an international 
technical community.

suggested alternative text:

The IETF uses English for technical discussions, meetings, working groups, 
working-group documents, and material that may be published. Using one 
common language makes communication easier and allows everyone to discuss 
the same documents.

However, this also creates problems for people who do not speak English 
fluently. They may find discussions and documents harder to understand, 
and it may be more difficult for them to express their ideas clearly. As a 
result, they often need to spend more time and effort communicating than 
fluent English speakers do.



-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: [email protected]