LETTER: Untangling the chief justice’s ‘offensification’ of English
Several readings of the sentence in question did not make it any clearer to me
As I am always up for a challenge when it comes to plain language, I decided to give Jonathan Schrire's a try (“English as she should not be spoke (https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/letters/2020-12-02-letter-english-as-she-should-not-be-spoke/)”, December 2). Several readings of the sentence in question did not make it any clearer to me, so I asked Google Translate what it would make of the sentence in Dutch, French and Afrikaans. After reading the three automatic translations several times, I came up with two English translations.
Original: “The offensification of incitement of any offence is such an egregious encroachment into the free expression terrain that good reason or stronger justification would be required to save it from invalidation.”..
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