Please be advised: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 12:39, 1 November 2019

Towards more picturesque speech
SEC guidance on plain EnglishIndex: Click to expand:
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A phrase that presents a Cartesian problem in any language: if your audience has the intellectual capacity to read and comprehend your prose, Q.E.D. by doing so it must be being advised, becoming aware, or taking note of what you have to say. If it is not reading your prose, then asking it to do so when, transparently, it isn’t, won’t make a damn of difference.

“I told you to pay attention.”

“Perhaps; but when you told me to pay attention — if indeed that is what you did — I wasn’t, well, paying attention.”

So, you needn’t say please be advised, please be aware, or please note, or “PARENTAL ADVISORY”. This we can sum up in the famous Latin maxim: animadverto ergo scio:[1] “I am paying attention, therefore I am aware”.

  1. It’s not actually a famous Latin phrase. I made it up, with my secret Latin advisor’s help.