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19 February 2012

The perils of waffle #3


This piece, by a Mr Viktrovich (or is it Mr Kovalenok? see piece immediately below), starts with an unusually constipated sentence, which calls for analysis and correction. 
     “Under the conditions of markets globalisation” would be better written: “In a global market”.
     What are “food stock markets”? “The food market” perhaps? How does a food “stock market” different from the food “market”? The phrase “stock market” is generally used as a synonym for the “stock exchange”.
     Why is the word “Retail” in the fourth line capitalised? Mr Viktrovich appears to have German tendencies, though of a different sort from Mr Andrey (see below). Germans use capitals with most nouns, perhaps to add emphasis or the appearance of importance. English does not do this. “Retail” here is not a proper noun, so should not be capitalised in the middle of a sentence.
     “Foodstuff production” should be simply “food production”. “Foodstuffs” is a generic noun which has no singular (You cannot talk of “one foodstuff”), and it cannot be used as an adjective, at least not if you do not want to sound too деревенский.
     This is such a constipated sentence, that I would like to suggest a shorter version which, I think, still conveys the full sense of Mr Viktrovich’s text.
In a food market that is globalised from production to retailing, product safety has become an important issue.
     Is that not clearer? If  “quality” really is “an absolute priorityl”, then I would have thought Metro Cash & Carry might have taken the trouble to consult language.etiquette@gmail.com before going into print. But there's always a next time.

1 comment:

  1. Just a note, in the articles the names of the authors are wrongly written "russian" way: last name, first Name, father's name.

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