Tone & Register: Formal vs Informal English, Formal Letters, Emails & Tone Words

For beginners · ages 5–8

How words sound: tone

Tone is how words sound to the person hearing them. The news can stay the same while the tone changes.

In section 6 you will meet the Reader Test. It begins right here, with one question: how will these words sound to the person who hears them?

Here is one piece of news, said three ways. The news: there is no swimming lesson today.

Notice two things. First, the facts never changed. In all three, there is no swimming. Second, a few small words changed how the news feels. "Sorry" made it kind. "Ugh" made it cross. A happy plan made it cheerful.

So when you want to know the tone, do not only ask what happened. Ask which words were chosen, and how they would make you feel if you heard them.

Picture your words as a present you hand to someone. The news is the toy inside. The tone is the wrapping paper. The same toy can come in bright, happy paper, in plain brown paper, or in paper that is torn and crumpled. The person sees the wrapping first, before they open the box. Choose wrapping that matches how you want them to feel.

You now know that words have a sound, and that the sound is called tone. In the next sections you will hear it in more places: how we talk to a friend, a teacher and a stranger; please, thank you and sorry; asking nicely with could and may; and the words that carry happy, sad and cross feelings. In section 6 you will put it together in the Reader Test. In Practice you will meet a second idea, register, which is how formal the words are.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. The same word can have a different tone in a different place. "Great!" usually sounds happy. "Great, we won the match!" is cheerful. But listen to this: "Great. Now my shoes are wet." The word is still "Great", yet the speaker is not happy at all. The rest of the line tells you the speaker is cross. So you cannot always find the tone from one word on its own. You look at the whole line, and at what is happening around it. Here is another way to see it. "Well done" can sound warm: "Well done, Kabir! What a catch!" It can also sound cross, if someone has just knocked over the paint: "Well done. Look at this mess." The word is the same. What happened, and the words around it, change the tone. Read the whole line, and ask how it would make you feel.

Did you know that the word "tone" comes from music? It comes from an old Greek word, tonos, which meant stretching. Think of a string on a guitar or a sitar. Stretch it tight and it sounds high. Let it go loose and it sounds low. The same string can make many different sounds. So people began to talk about the tone of a musical note, and then the tone of a voice. Your words work like that string. The same news can sound high and happy, or low and cross, depending on how you "tune" it with the words you choose. Musicians still talk about a warm tone or a bright tone, the very same words we use for voices and for writing.

Tone is not about right or wrong English. "Come here!" and "Could you come here, please?" are both good English. They just sound different. A short, sharp line is sometimes the best one. When there is danger, or no time, "Stop!" is kinder than a long, soft question. Two people can hear the same line a little differently. If you are not sure of the tone, look at the words around it and at what is happening. Tone is about how the words feel. It is not about spelling.

1. Before you speak or write, ask how your words will sound to the person hearing them.
2. Look for the words that carry the tone: please, thank you, sorry, hooray, ugh, lovely.
3. Remember that the same news can be told in a kind way or a cross way.
4. Read the whole line, not one word, before you decide on the tone.
5. When you want help, choose the kinder way to say it.
6. Keep a short, sharp line for when it is really needed, like danger.
7. Remember that written words have tone too.
8. If a line sounds crosser than you feel, change a word.

• Meera, could you come here, please?
• Hooray, Kabir's team won the match!
• Ugh, Riya's bus is late again.
• Thank you, Tom, that was so kind of you.
• Great, it's raining - puddles for Emily to jump in!
• Luca, your drawing is lovely.

• Nikhil, please hold my bag for a minute.
• Sana said, 'Great, it's raining. Now we can't go out.'
• Well done, Ishaan! That was a brilliant catch.
• Jack, stop that noise right now!
• Don't worry, Lily, we can fix the kite together.
• Yuki's grandma smiled: 'What a wonderful surprise!'

A friend, a teacher, a stranger

We talk one way to a friend and another way to a teacher or a stranger. Both ways are good English. Each one fits a different person.

This is the heart of the Reader Test you will meet in section 6: first ask who is listening, then choose the words.

Here is one problem - a lost water bottle - told to three different people. Look at how the words change.

Notice two things. First, the problem is the same all three times. Second, the friend line is not rude. It is just right for Farhan. The words grew more careful as the listener grew less close.

Picture three doors. The first door is your friend's: it is always open, and you run straight in with a shout of "Hi!" The second door is your teacher's: you knock and wait, and say "May I come in?" The third door belongs to a stranger: you ring the bell, stand back and say "Excuse me". Every door is a good door. You just knock differently at each.

You now know that you choose different words for a friend, a teacher and a stranger. Next you will add three small words - please, thank you and sorry - and then learn to ask nicely with could and may. In section 6 the Reader Test will turn "who is listening?" into a set of steps. In Practice this idea gets a name, register: how formal or informal the words are.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some people are more than one kind of listener. Your aunt is family, so you may say "Hi, Aunty!" and give a hug. But if your aunt is also your teacher at school, then in the classroom you might say "Good morning, Ma'am" like everyone else. The person is the same. The place is different. So the words change too. The same thing happens with a friend's parent. At your friend's house you might say "Hello, Uncle." At a school meeting you might say "Good evening" in a more careful way. And a stranger can soon become a friend. On the first day at a new school, you say "Hello, I'm Kabir." A week later, it is "Hey, see you at lunch!" So you cannot just learn a list of people. Each time, ask: who is this person to me, here, right now? Then choose the words.

Did you know that English once had two words for "you"? Long ago, English speakers said "thou" to a close friend or a child, and "you" to someone they respected or did not know well. You can still find "thou" in very old poems and plays. Many languages still do this today. In Hindi, people can say "tu", "tum" or "aap", and "aap" is the most respectful. In French, children say "tu" to a friend and "vous" to a teacher. Modern English has only "you" for everyone, so English speakers show closeness or respect with other words instead: "Hey" or "Good morning", "Can I" or "May I".

The friend way is never bad English. It is good English for a friend. There is often more than one way that fits. "Good morning, Mrs Rao" and "Good morning, Ma'am" can both fit a teacher. Your school may have its own way, and it is good to follow it. Family can be close like a friend and respected like a teacher at the same time. Many children speak to grandparents warmly and politely at once. This section is about fitting your words to the person. It is not about being more or less friendly: you can be warm with everyone.

1. Before you speak, ask who is listening: a friend, a teacher or a stranger.
2. Use easy, chatty words with a friend you know well.
3. Greet a teacher with care: Good morning, Excuse me, May I.
4. Start with Excuse me or Hello when you speak to a stranger.
5. Give a stranger the whole picture, because they do not know you.
6. Remember the friend way is good English, not a mistake.
7. Follow your school's way of greeting teachers.
8. Change your words when the place changes, even with the same person.
9. Be warm with everyone: careful words can still be kind words.

• Hey Arjun, want to play?
• Kabir said, 'Good morning, Ma'am. May I come in?'
• Riya asked a stranger, 'Excuse me, where is the library?'
• Jack waved at Tom: 'See ya!'
• Emily told the head teacher, 'Thank you for the prize, Mrs Green.'
• Mateo asked the bus driver, 'Sorry, does this bus go to the zoo?'

• Dev said to the principal, 'Hey, what's up?'
• Farhan asked the class teacher, 'Please may I fetch my book?'
• Tanvi said to the shopkeeper, 'Hello. Two pencils, please.'
• Harry grinned at Sam: 'Cool trick!'
• Lily said to a visitor at school, 'Welcome. The hall is this way.'
• Kofi said to a friend of Grandpa's, 'Hello, it's nice to meet you.'

Please, thank you and sorry

Three small words change how a message feels: please, thank you and sorry.

The Reader Test in section 6 will ask how your words make the listener feel. These three words are the quickest way to make them feel good, whoever they are.

Here are three moments from one afternoon at Kabir's home. Watch the small words at work.

Notice that the best thank-you and the best sorry both say what they are for. "Thanks!" and "Sorry!" are good starts. "Thank you for the storybook" and "I'm sorry I spilt juice" show the listener that you really noticed.

Picture three little keys on a ring. The please key opens doors: people are glad to help. The thank-you key lights a lamp: people feel noticed and warm. The sorry key mends a broken string: the friendship is tied together again. Each key works best when you turn it all the way - by saying what it is for.

You now have three small words that change how a message feels. Next you will ask nicely with could, may and please, and see how a request can be made softer. After that come words that carry feelings: happy, sad and cross. In Practice you will learn to write a full apology and a polite complaint, where saying what the sorry is for, and how you will fix it, matters even more.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. The words "thank you" and "sorry" do not always sound kind. Listen to this: a child knocks over Riya's tower and says, "Sorry." Then laughs and runs away. The word is sorry, but it does not sound sorry at all. The laughing tells Riya the truth. Or this: "Thanks a lot," said by someone whose ice cream you just dropped. The words say thank you, but the person is cross. So a kind word is not magic on its own. It works when the rest of the message matches it. And sometimes "sorry" does not mean you did anything wrong. "Sorry, is this seat free?" uses sorry to mean "excuse me". "I'm sorry your cat is ill" means "I feel sad for you". Read the whole line to know which sorry you are hearing.

Did you know that please is a shortened sentence? Long ago, people said "if it please you", which meant "if it makes you happy". Over time this became "if you please", and then just "please". So every time you say "Please pass the salt", you are really saying "Pass the salt, if it makes you happy to do it." That is why please sounds kind: it gives the other person a choice. You can still hear the old way in some stories and plays, where a character says "If you please, Sir" with a little bow. Short as it is, please still carries the whole old sentence inside it.

A line without please is not bad English. "Pass the salt" is fine at a busy family meal, and the tone of your voice matters too. There is more than one good way to thank. "Thanks!", "Thank you" and "Thank you very much" can all be right. Pick the one that fits the moment and the person. Sorry has more than one job. It can say "I did something wrong", "excuse me" or "I feel sad for you". These words do not fix everything. After a big mistake, a sorry works best with a way to help.

1. Add please when you ask for something.
2. Say thank you whenever someone gives you something or helps you.
3. Say what the thank-you is for when the gift or help is special.
4. Say sorry when something goes wrong because of you.
5. Name the mistake in your sorry: I'm sorry I broke your cup.
6. Offer to help put things right after a sorry.
7. Make the rest of your message match the kind word.
8. Use each word once, not over and over: one real please beats five pleeeases.
9. Remember that a line without please is still good English; please makes it kinder.

• Ishaan said, 'Please pass the chutney, Dadi.'
• Thanks for the sticker, Priya!
• Meera said, 'I'm sorry I broke your cup, Aunty.'
• Thank you very much for the flowers, Mrs Hill.
• Oops, sorry, Jack!
• Amara said, 'Thank you for helping me find my shoe.'

• Could you please open the tiffin, Nani?
• Sorry I stepped on your toe, Rahul.
• Farhan shouted 'Sorry!' and ran off.
• Thanks a lot, Grace, you're a star!
• Oliver said to the visitors, 'Thank you for coming to our school play.'
• Hana asked, 'Please may I have a turn on the slide?'

Asking nicely: can you, could you, may I

A request can be plain or soft. Could, may and please make it softer.

How soft should you be? That is a job for the Reader Test in section 6: who am I asking, and how close are we? You will see how questions are built in the Sentence Types chapter; here you only choose how soft the ask should be.

Watch Aanya ask for the same thing - a turn with a book - from four different people.

Notice two things. First, the plain ask to Zara was not rude. It fitted a best friend. Second, the ask grew softer as the person grew less close, or when a rule said so.

Picture a dimmer switch for a lamp. Turn it one way and the light is bright and direct: "Can I have a turn?" Turn it the other way and the light becomes soft and warm: "Could I have a turn, please?" Every setting is a real light. You choose the setting that suits the room - and the person in it.

You now know how to make an ask softer with could, may and please. Next you will meet words that carry feelings: happy, sad and cross. In section 6 the Reader Test will help you decide how soft to be for each person. In Practice you will see that polite is not always the same as formal: "Could you pass the salt?" is polite and relaxed at once. Much later you will learn softer ways still, for a letter or an email.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. "Can I" and "May I" can mean two different things. "Can I swim?" can mean "Am I able to swim?" A child who is learning might ask the swimming coach, "Can I swim yet?" That is about being able. "May I swim?" only means "Am I allowed to swim?" That is about permission. In everyday talk, "Can I?" is also used for permission - "Can I go out to play?" - and everyone understands it. That is why it is good English. Some grown-ups like to keep "may" for permission and "can" for being able. That is a careful way to speak, and some teachers ask for it in class. When a teacher asks for it, follow it. So the answer is not "can is wrong". The answer is: both are English, may is the more careful one, and the person and the place decide.

Did you know that the word "may" once meant "can"? A very long time ago, in Old English, the word that became "may" meant "to be able" or "to have power". Its cousin "might" still means power when we say "with all my might". Over hundreds of years, "may" slowly changed its job. Today it is the careful word for asking permission, and "can" does most of the work of saying you are able. So when someone says "May I?" and someone else says "Can I?", both are using words whose meanings have overlapped for a very long time. Both are still good English today; may is simply the more careful of the two.

"Can I" is never wrong English. Use it happily with friends and family. More than one soft ask can fit the same person. "Could I" and "May I" can both be kind ways to ask a teacher. If your class or school has its own rule, follow the rule. A soft ask is not always best. If there is danger, a quick "Stop!" or "Help!" is right. This section is about how soft an ask sounds. How to build a question - the word order and the question mark - belongs to the Sentence Types chapter.

1. Ask, do not just name what you want: "Can I have water?", not only "Water!".
2. Use can happily with friends and family.
3. Use could to make an ask softer, for a teacher, a stranger or a guest.
4. Use may when you ask for permission carefully.
5. Add please to any ask to make it kinder.
6. Ask more softly with a teacher, a stranger or a guest.
7. Follow your class or school rule if it asks for may.
8. Keep it simple with friends: too grand sounds strange.
9. Never worry that can is a mistake: it is good English, and the person decides how soft to be.

• Aarav asked a friend, 'Can I have some water?'
• Diya asked the teacher, 'Could I have some water, please?'
• Rohan asked, 'May I go out, Sir?'
• Ellie asked, 'Could you help me with my zip, Mr Brown?'
• Sam called to a friend, 'Can you throw the ball back?'
• Sofia asked the librarian, 'May I borrow this book, please?'

• Kavya asked Nani, 'Could you plait my hair tonight?'
• Zain said to the bus conductor, 'Excuse me, may I sit here?'
• Neha asked the teacher, 'Can I sharpen my pencil?'
• Harry asked Mum, 'Please could I stay up late?'
• Lily asked a stranger, 'Would you take our photo, please?'
• Nia asked the chef, 'Could I try a little bit, please?'

Happy words, sad words, cross words

Some words carry a feeling. They set the tone of the whole line.

The Reader Test in section 6 asks how your words will make the reader feel. Feeling words are where that feeling comes from.

Here is one topic - a football match - in four lines. Watch how the feeling words change the tone, even though the topic stays the same.

Notice that the topic never told you the tone. Football can be cheerful, sad, cross or calm. Losing can even be told calmly. Only the feeling words decide. That is why you find the word first, and name the tone second.

Try it on a line of your own. "Our team lost." has no feeling word, so it is just news. Add one word - "Sadly, our team lost." - and now it has a tone.

Picture every line as a room, and the feeling words as the paint on the walls. A room painted sunny yellow feels cheerful. Grey paint feels sad. Hot red feels cross. Soft blue feels calm. The furniture - what the line is about - can be the same in every room. It is the paint that sets the mood. Look at the paint before you say how the room feels.

You now know four tone names - cheerful, sad, cross and calm - and how to find the words that carry them. Next, in section 6, you will put everything together in the Reader Test. In Practice you will learn more tone names, such as serious, worried, excited and sarcastic, and you will name the tone of whole messages, not just single lines.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a line has two feeling words that pull different ways. "Sadly, the match was cancelled - but hooray, we get pizza instead!" "Sadly" is a sad word. "Hooray" is a happy word. So what is the tone? Look at where the line ends up. It starts sad, then turns cheerful. The tone of the whole line is cheerful in the end, because the happy word comes last and wins. Here is another: "I'm so cross I missed the bus. Oh well, I'll walk." It starts cross and ends calm. So when two feeling words pull different ways, read to the end. Ask: how does the speaker feel when they finish? Name that tone, and notice the turn on the way. Good readers see both feelings, and say which one the line ends with.

Did you know that the word "sad" once meant "full"? More than a thousand years ago, in Old English, "sad" meant full up, having had enough. Slowly it came to mean tired of something, and then, much later, unhappy. The cross phrase "fed up" works in a similar way. To be fed up once meant you had eaten so much you could not eat any more. Now it means you have had enough of something annoying, like rain on a match day. So two of our feeling words began as words about having too much food. Words, like people, can change how they feel over a long time.

A line with no feeling word is not wrong. "The bus comes at eight" just gives news. Not every line needs a tone word. Cheerful, sad, cross and calm are only the first four tone names. There are many more, and you will meet them in Practice. Sometimes two people hear a line a little differently. Look for the feeling word and read to the end before you decide. Feeling words are good English whether they are happy, sad or cross. A cross word is not a bad word; it tells the truth about a feeling.

1. Read the whole line before you name the tone.
2. Find the feeling word first: put your finger on it.
3. Name the tone from that word: cheerful, sad, cross or calm.
4. Do not name the tone from the topic: rain can be happy news.
5. Tell sad (hurt and quiet) from cross (hot and fed up).
6. Remember calm: steady words like it's all right and let's wait.
7. When two feeling words pull different ways, read to the end.
8. When you write, choose a feeling word on purpose, so your reader feels what you mean.
9. Remember that a line with no feeling word just gives news.

• What a wonderful day at the fair, Riya!
• Sadly, Arjun's picnic was cancelled.
• Meera groaned, 'I'm fed up with this rain.'
• Tom cheered, 'Hooray, we won!'
• Emily said softly, 'It's all right. We can try again.'
• Kofi sighed, 'I miss my old friends.'

• Hooray, rain! Now Aanya's seeds will grow.
• Ishaan said, 'This game is so unfair!'
• Tanvi whispered, 'Let's stay calm and wait.'
• Oliver said, 'The party was brilliant!'
• Grace said, 'Unfortunately, the pool is shut today.'
• Yuki grumbled, 'Not broccoli again!'

The Reader Test

One test chooses the words for any person. Run it in four steps.

If a word would surprise, puzzle or upset this reader, change it. It is not wrong English. It is the wrong fit. This is the chapter's test. Every section from here on uses it.

Here is the Reader Test run three times on one piece of news. Ishaan's class is going on a trip to the zoo on Friday, and Ishaan needs a packed lunch.

Notice three things. First, the news is the same each time, but the words change, because the reader changes.

Second, none of the three is wrong English. "Sit with me on the bus?" is a good way to talk to Dev. It would only be the wrong fit on the form for the teacher.

Third, look at Dadi. Ishaan is very close to Dadi, so the words are warm. Dadi is also older, and Ishaan is asking for help, so the words are polite too: "Could you please". Close does not always mean short. The test asks all three questions before it chooses.

Picture a pair of glasses called the Reader Glasses. Before you speak or write, you put them on and look at the person in front of you. Through the glasses you see three little signs floating above their head: who they are, what they need, and how close you are. Then you reach into your word bag and pick the words that match what the signs say.

The Reader Test grows with you. In the next sections you will use it to choose between everyday words and careful words, to tell the same news two ways and to write a thank-you note. In Practice you will give its answers names: tone for how the words sound, and register for how formal they are. In Craft and Master you will use the very same three questions on letters, emails, speeches and posts.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes more than one way fits the same person. To greet your class teacher in the morning, you might say "Good morning, Ma'am", "Good morning, Ms Rao" or "Hello, Ms Rao". Run the Reader Test on each one: a teacher, who needs a friendly greeting, and a grown-up in charge. All three fit. None of them is the one right answer. So the Reader Test does not always choose one winner. It does something more useful. It throws out the ways that do not fit, like "Hey, what's up?" to the teacher or "I hereby greet you" to a friend, and it leaves you free to choose among the ways that do. And here is a second hard one. A person can be very close to you and still need careful words. Nani is very close, so you are warm. Nani is also older, so you are polite. Warm and polite can go together in one sentence: "Nani, could you tell me the story about the monkey again, please?" The test asks all three questions before it chooses. How close you are is only one of them.

Did you know that the people who hear or read your words have a special name? They are your audience. The word comes from a very old Latin word, audire, which means "to hear". The same old word gives us "audio", for sound, and "audition", when someone listens to you sing or act. So when you picture your reader, you are thinking about your audience: the people who will hear your words. And here is the surprising part. You started using the Reader Test long before you could read. Watch a small child talk to a baby. The child uses short words, a high, sing-song voice and lots of smiles. Then watch the same child talk to a grandparent, and the words change again. Nobody taught that child a rule. The child simply pictured the listener. This section gives that clever habit a name, so you can use it on purpose.

The Reader Test is a fit test, not a grammar test. It checks whether your words suit the person, not whether they are good English. More than one way often fits the same person. The test throws out the ways that do not fit and lets you choose among the rest. If you do not know the person at all, careful, polite words are the safe choice. A stranger is rarely upset by "Excuse me" and "please". The test does not ask you to be a different person for each reader. You are still you. You are just choosing the words that this person will understand and enjoy.

1. Picture the reader before you choose a single word.
2. Ask who is reading or listening.
3. Ask what they need: news, a question, a thank-you or a sorry.
4. Ask how close you are: very close, a little, or not at all.
5. Choose everyday words for close friends and careful words for strangers and people in charge.
6. Remember that warm and polite can go together, as with a grandparent.
7. When you do not know the person, choose careful, polite words.
8. Change a word that would surprise, puzzle or upset the reader.
9. Give the reader as your reason for every choice you make.

• Hey Rohan, see you at the park!
• Nani, could you please tell me the story again?
• Good morning, Ma'am. Here is my homework.
• Excuse me, which bus goes to the museum?
• Thanks, Grandad! The kite is brilliant!
• Dear Dr Okafor, thank you for visiting our class.

• Dear Kabir, I hereby invite you to my birthday party.
• Uncle, may I take one more laddoo, please?
• Ma'am, I have finished my sums. Shall I start the next page?
• Mum, can I have a biscuit?
• Hi Jack! Guess what? We got a puppy!
• Excuse me, is this seat free?

Everyday words and careful words

Many ideas have two words. Both are good English. The Reader Test picks the one that fits.

The careful word fits any reader, which is why notices and forms use it. The everyday word fits the people who know you. Step 4 of the Reader Test chooses between them.

Here is the Reader Test choosing words for one idea, three times. Sana's class has a sports day on Saturday.

Look at the words that changed. For the friend, "kids". For the notice, "children". Both mean the same young people. The friend knows Sana well, so the everyday word fits. The notice goes to many parents at once, so the careful word fits all of them.

Now look at a word that did not change: "on Saturday". Some words fit every reader. You do not need a careful word for everything.

And look at "Can you come and watch?" to Mum. That is everyday English, and it fits. A careful word is not always needed with family; the test chooses by the reader.

Picture two boxes on your desk. One box is painted with a house and a playground: it holds your everyday words, like kids, mum, tummy and bye. The other box is painted with a school gate and a post office: it holds your careful words, like children, mother, stomach and goodbye. Before you write, you look at your reader, then open the box that fits.

Everyday words and careful words grow into a bigger idea. In Practice you will call them informal words and formal words, and meet many more pairs: buy and purchase, help and assist, ask and enquire. You will also learn that some plain words, like get and help, fit formal writing too. In Craft you will choose words for emails, reports and speeches with the same test.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some words are careful in one place and everyday in another. "Mum" is the everyday word in Britain and in many Indian homes. "Mom" is the everyday word in America. "Amma", "Ammi" and "Maa" are everyday words in many Indian families. And "mother" is the careful word in all of these places. So "Mum" is not the only everyday word for mother. It depends on where you live and what your family says. Now look at "TV". Many grown-ups use "TV" in careful writing too, like a newspaper headline: "New TV channel for children". So "TV" can be everyday or quite careful, depending on the reader. And some words fit everyone. "Yes" fits a friend and a visitor. "Children" fits a friend and a notice. "Get" fits a chat and a school letter. So the Reader Test does not ask you to learn two lists by heart. It asks one question each time: will this word fit this reader? If the reader is close, the everyday word fits. If the reader is a stranger, a guest or many people at once, choose the word that fits everyone.

Did you know that English is full of word pairs like "kids" and "children"? A very long time ago, English took many words from French. The French words were often used by rulers, courts and schools, so many of them became the careful words. The older English words stayed as everyday words at home. That is why English has pairs like these: "ask" and "enquire" "buy" and "purchase" "help" and "assist" "start" and "commence" In each pair, the first word is the older, everyday English word, and the second is the careful word that came in from French or from Latin. So when you choose between an everyday word and a careful word, you are using a choice that English speakers have had for hundreds of years. You are in good company.

Everyday words are good English. They are never mistakes. They are the right words for home, family and friends. Careful words are not "better" words. They are words that fit readers who do not know you, or many readers at once. Many plain words, like "get", "help", "yes" and "on Saturday", fit every reader. You do not need a careful twin for every word. Families and places have their own everyday words: "Mum", "Mom", "Amma" and "Maa" are all everyday words in different homes. Each one fits its own family.

1. Picture the reader before you choose between an everyday word and a careful word.
2. Use everyday words like kids, mum and bye with family and friends.
3. Use careful words like children, mother and goodbye in notices, forms and letters to strangers.
4. Remember that both kinds of words are good English.
5. Keep plain words like get, help and yes: they fit every reader.
6. When many people will read your words, choose words that fit all of them.
7. Never tell a friend their everyday word is a mistake.
8. Give the reader as your reason for the word you choose.

• The kids ran straight to the swings.
• All children must bring a water bottle on Monday.
• Mummy, can we watch TV now?
• Yeah, see you at the park!
• Please tell the nurse if your child has a stomach ache.
• Yes, Mrs Tanaka, I have finished my reading.

• Dear parents, the kids' sports day is on Saturday.
• Bye, Nikhil! See you tomorrow!
• Goodbye, Ma'am. Thank you for the lesson.
• Dad, my tummy feels funny.
• The television in the hall is not working.
• You will receive your prize on Friday.

The same news, two ways

One piece of news can be told two ways. The facts stay the same. The telling changes with the reader.

Step 4 of the Reader Test chooses the telling. Picture the reader, then wrap the news to fit.

Here is the Reader Test run on one piece of news for three readers. Zoya's school will be closed tomorrow because of heavy rain.

Notice three things. First, the facts never changed: school is closed tomorrow, because of rain.

Second, Riya got the shortest telling. Riya is in the same class and knows why a rain day is exciting, so five words are enough.

Third, Dadi and Mr Das both got the whole picture, but in different ways. Dadi's telling is warm and chatty, because Dadi is family and far away. Mr Das's telling is calm and clear, with a question, because Mr Das needs to plan a class. Close family and teachers both need full sentences; the warmth is what changes.

Picture your news as a toy ball. For a friend, you throw it across the playground: quick, bouncy, and caught with a shout. For Nani or a teacher, you carry it over in both hands and place it gently on the table, so they can see every side of it. It is the same ball. You just hand it over in the way that fits the person.

Telling the same news two ways grows into something bigger. In the next section you will write the careful way down, in a thank-you note. In Practice you will meet friendly letters and formal letters, and see how each one tells news to its reader. In Craft you will tell one piece of news in a report, an email and a speech, each with its own telling, and all with the same facts.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes the same reader needs a different telling on a different day. Your class teacher is usually a reader who needs the careful way. But at the school fair, when your team wins the tug of war, you may run up and shout, "Ma'am, we won!" The teacher smiles and cheers with you. In that moment, short and excited fits. Why? The Reader Test asks what the reader needs. At the fair, the teacher was watching. The teacher already knows who, what and when, and only wants to share the joy. Now the other side. Your best friend usually gets the short, excited telling. But if your friend was ill at home and missed the match, "We won!" is not enough. Your friend needs more: "We won 3-1! Kabir scored twice, and I got the last goal!" So the telling is not fixed to a person. It is fixed to what the person already knows and what they need right now. Ask the Reader Test questions every time, not just once for each person.

Did you know that news readers on the radio and television tell the same news in more than one way too? A news story for grown-ups might begin: "Heavy rain has closed schools across the city today." A news programme made for children might tell the same story like this: "Guess what? Lots of schools are shut today because of all the rain!" The facts are the same: rain, schools, closed, today. But the words, the length and the feeling change, because the audience changes. Newspapers do it too. A big headline on the front page is short and loud. The story underneath is calm and full of facts: who, what, where and when. So when you tell your news one way to a friend and another way to your teacher, you are doing exactly what news writers do every single day.

The same news, two ways, never means changing the facts. Only the words, the length and the feeling change. The friend telling is not bad English. "We won! Best day ever!" is exactly right for a friend. The careful telling is not always cold. For Nani, it can be clear and warm at once. There are not only two ways. Every reader may need a slightly different telling. "Two ways" is a start: the playground way and the careful way.

1. Picture the reader before you tell your news.
2. Keep the facts exactly the same, whoever the reader is.
3. For a friend who knows the story, tell it short and excited.
4. For a teacher, the principal or Nani far away, say who, what and when.
5. Use full sentences in the careful telling.
6. Keep the careful telling warm for family and calm for teachers.
7. Never use the playground telling in a note to the principal.
8. Ask what the reader already knows before you choose how much to say.
9. Read your telling back as the reader would, and add any fact they are missing.

• We won! Best day ever!
• Our team won the match 3-1 on Saturday.
• Nani, guess what? I got a gold star for reading today!
• Lost my tooth! It is in a glass!
• Miss Hall, my front tooth came out at lunch.
• Our cat had three kittens last night.

• Yay, no homework this weekend!
• Sir, our class won the drawing prize this morning.
• Hey! We won!!! Best day ever!
• Grandpa, I learnt to ride my bike without stabilisers today!
• Guess what, Jack? I can ride my bike now!
• Dear Mr Silva, I will miss school on Friday because my cousin is getting married.

A thank-you note

A thank-you note has four parts. The Reader Test chooses how warm each part is.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 are the same in both notes. Only the warmth changes. The Reader Test picks it: very close gets "Love"; a guest gets a polite ending.

Here is the Reader Test run on two thank-you notes written by Anika on the same day.

Notice three things. First, both notes have all four parts: a name, a thank-you, what for with a detail, and an ending.

Second, the details are different. For Mama, Anika shares the fun: "I hit my first four." For Ms Pillai, Anika shows the talk was useful: "I have told my family to check the gas." Each detail tells the reader their gift or their time mattered.

Third, the endings are different. "Love" fits Mama, who is family. "From Anika, Class 3A" fits Ms Pillai, a guest who met the whole class. "Thank you again" would fit Ms Pillai too. Both notes are warm; the warmth simply matches the reader.

Picture a thank-you note as a little sandwich. The top slice of bread is the reader's name. The bottom slice is your ending and your own name. In the middle goes the filling: the thank-you, what it is for, and one tasty detail. A sandwich with no filling is just bread. A note with no "what for" is just "thank you".

A thank-you note is your first letter, and its four parts return again and again. In Practice you will write friendly letters and formal letters, with set openings like "Dear Riya" and "Respected Sir" and set endings like "Love" and "Yours faithfully". In Craft you will write thank-you emails at school and work, with a subject line. Each time, the Reader Test chooses the warmth.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes more than one ending fits the same reader. For a class guest, "From Class 2B", "Thank you again, Class 2B" and "With thanks, Class 2B" all fit. None of them is the one right answer. The Reader Test does not pick a single winner; it throws out the endings that do not fit, like "Love and hugs and kisses" for a guest, or "Yours truly, Master Kabir" for Nani. And here is a second hard one. The same person can get a warmer note or a more careful note, depending on how close you are. Your class teacher is not family, but you see your teacher every day. At the end of the year, a warm note fits: "Dear Mrs Iyer, Thank you for a wonderful year. I will miss our story time. With love, Riya." A visiting author you met once is further away. A polite note fits better: "Dear Ms Rahman, Thank you for reading to our class. From Riya, Class 2A." So the ending is not fixed to a job like "teacher". It is fixed to how close you are. Ask the Reader Test questions each time you write.

Did you know that people have been writing thank-you notes for hundreds of years? Before telephones and emails, a letter was the only way to thank someone who lived far away. Families kept these letters in boxes and drawers, and some of them are still read today, long after the writers grew up. Here is something surprising about why thank-you notes matter. When you name what the thanks is for, the reader learns that you noticed. A grandparent who chose a storybook wonders whether you will like it. "I read it twice!" answers that question. That is why so many grandparents, teachers and guest speakers keep the thank-you notes children send them. A note that names the gift is a little gift in return. So the "what for" part is not just good manners. It is the part that makes the reader smile.

A thank-you note does not need to be long. Four short parts are enough. More than one ending often fits the same reader. "From", "Thank you again" and "With thanks" all fit a class guest. "Love" is the usual ending for family. Some close friends and much-loved teachers get "With love" too; how close you are decides. A spoken thank-you counts too. The same four parts work when you say thank you in person: the name, thanks, what for, and a smile.

1. Picture the reader before you start the note.
2. Open with the reader's name: "Dear Nani," or "Dear Dr Mehta,".
3. Say thank you clearly.
4. Name exactly what the thanks is for.
5. Add one detail that shows you used or enjoyed it.
6. Choose "Love," for family and a polite ending such as "From" or "Thank you again," for a class guest.
7. Finish with your own name, or your class for a class note.
8. Read the note as the reader would, and check they know what the thanks is for.
9. Keep it short: four clear parts are enough for a warm, complete note.

• Dear Nani, thank you for the storybook.
• I read it twice, and the tiger part was my favourite!
• Love, Kabir
• Dear Mr Evans, thank you for showing us your bees.
• From everyone in Class 3, with thanks.
• Thank you for the football, Tía Rosa. I play with it every day!

• Dear Dadi, thank you. Love, Ishaan
• Thank you for the rakhi, Didi. I am wearing it right now!
• Dear Dr Mehta, thank you for teaching us how to wash our hands.
• Thanks for the sweets, Gran! They were yummy!
• Thank you again for visiting us. From Class 1
• Dear Uncle Kenji, thank you for the kite. It flew higher than the trees!

First mixed review

Everything from Discover, in one test. Run it for every reader.

Here is the Reader Test run through one day in Meera's life. Each reader gets different words.

Six readers, six ways of speaking and writing, all in one day. Notice that every line is kind, but the words change: everyday for a friend, careful for a stranger and a guest, warm and polite together for Nani.

None of these lines is better English than the others. Each one is the best fit for its reader, because the Reader Test pictured each reader first.

Picture a toolbox with eight small tools inside: a tone dial, a friend-or-teacher sign, a please-and-thank-you key, a soft-ask cushion, a box of feeling words, two word boxes for home and school, a news wrapper and a thank-you note card. The Reader Glasses sit on top. You put the glasses on first, look at the reader, and then pick the tool the moment needs.

Everything in Discover grows in Practice. How words sound becomes tone, and how careful they are becomes register. Everyday and careful words become informal and formal words, with contractions and slang added. Thank-you notes grow into friendly letters, formal letters, apologies and complaints. And you will learn to keep one register all the way through a letter. The Reader Test stays the same.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Kind and careful are not the same thing. "Could you pass the ball, please?" is kind, and it fits a friend and a stranger. "Dev, pass it here!" is everyday and short, but it is not unkind: it is how friends talk in a game. Now look at this: "Submit your forms by Monday." It is careful, but it is firm, not warm. A notice from school may sound like this, and that is fine for a notice. So there are two questions, not one. How careful are the words: everyday or careful? And how do they sound: kind, cheerful, sad or cross? A message can be everyday and kind: "Get well soon, Zoya! I miss you!" A message can be careful and kind: "Dear Mr Khan, thank you for your wonderful talk." A message can be everyday and cross: "Ugh, you're so slow!" The Reader Test picks how careful to be. Kindness fits almost everyone. In Practice you will give these two questions their grown-up names: register and tone.

Did you know that you already switch your words dozens of times a day, without thinking? Count them tomorrow. You speak one way to the people at home over breakfast. You speak another way to a friend on the way to school, another way to the teacher in class, and another way to the person in the canteen. If you go to a shop, a clinic or a relative's house, the words change again. Grown-ups do exactly the same. A doctor speaks one way to a child in the clinic, another way to the child's parents and another way to other doctors. A cricket commentator speaks one way on television and another way at home with family. People who study language have noticed that good speakers do not have one "right" way of talking. They have many ways, and they choose among them for each listener. That is what you have learnt in Discover. You are not learning one right way. You are learning to choose.

The Reader Test is a fit test, not a grammar test. Everyday words, friend words and "Can I" are good English; they simply fit some readers better than others. More than one choice often fits the same reader. The test throws out the choices that do not fit. Kind words fit almost everyone. What changes most is how everyday or careful the words are. If you do not know the reader, careful, kind words are the safe choice.

1. Run the Reader Test before every message: who, what they need, how close.
2. Listen to how the words sound: kind, cheerful, sad or cross.
3. Use everyday words with friends and family, careful words with notices, strangers and guests.
4. Use please, thank you, sorry, could and may to make a request or a sorry kinder.
5. Read all the words before you name a tone.
6. Tell news short to a friend and complete to a teacher, with the same facts.
7. Say what the thanks is for in every thank-you note.
8. Give the reader as your reason for every choice.

• Could you open the window, please?
• I'm fed up with this rain!
• Sorry I stepped on your foot, Riya.
• What a wonderful day at the beach!
• All children will get a certificate on Friday.
• Sadly, the picnic is cancelled.

• May I go to the library, Ma'am?
• Nani, we won the quiz! I answered the last question!
• Dear Principal, the kids in my class want more swings, lol.
• Thank you for the jigsaw, Grandad. We finished it on Sunday.
• Great, it's raining - puddles!
• Excuse me, is this the queue for tickets?

Building accuracy · ages 8–12

Tone and register: two different questions

Every message answers two questions. Register: how formal are the words? Tone: how do they sound to the reader? The answers change separately, so one message can land in any of four corners.

Register lives mostly in the choice of words and forms: everyday words or formal ones, contractions or full forms, Hi or Dear. Tone lives in the feeling words and in what the message says about the reader: kind, grateful, fed up, must.

This is the fourth step of the Reader Test: once you know who is reading, what they need and how close you are, set the register and the warmth to fit - as two separate choices.

Register is a scale, not two boxes. Between the chatty and the formal sits a large neutral middle that fits almost any reader.

Tone has many more settings than register: cheerful, warm, respectful, serious, worried, cross, cold, sarcastic. A later section in Practice names them one by one.

Here is the useful part. The same news can move on one scale while staying still on the other. "We regret to inform you that the trip has been cancelled" and "So sorry, everyone - the trip is off, but we'll plan another soon!" are both kind. Only the register has moved. "The trip is cancelled. Do not ask again." is neutral in register but cold in tone. Only the tone has moved.

Picture a music player with two sliders. The first slider is register: slide it left for chatty, right for formal. The second slider is tone: slide it up for warm and cheerful, down for cold or cross. The sliders move on their own. A good writer sets both before writing - formal and warm for a thank-you letter to an officer, informal and cheerful for a cousin's birthday text.

Register lives mostly in words. Many ideas have two words, one everyday and one formal: get and obtain, help and assist, buy and purchase. Both are standard English, and the reader decides which fits. That is the next section. Later sections in Practice look at contractions, slang and the names we give to tones.

Here is the hard case: a message that is formal on the surface but sounds cold, or informal on the surface but sounds warm, and a reader who judges it by the wrong scale. Compare these two replies to a student who asked a teacher for a deadline extension. Your request has been noted. The deadline remains Friday. Sorry, Aditi, I can't move it this time - but I'm happy to help you plan the work. The first is neutral to formal in register and cold in tone. It gives no reason and no help. The second is informal - a contraction, a first name, a dash - and warm, even though it also says no. Which is better? That depends on the reader and the setting. In a school email both could work. What matters is that the student will feel the second one more kindly, and that feeling comes from the tone, not the register. The mistake is to judge the first as polite because it is formal, or the second as rude because it is chatty. Polite and formal are separate. The Reader Test asks you to set both: the register the relationship needs, and the warmth the situation needs. This is why items in this section always name which question they ask. A sort by register ignores the tone; a sort by tone ignores the register.

The word register has a life in music as well. A singer's voice has registers - low, middle and high - and a trained singer moves between them without a break. Linguists use the same word for the way speakers move between ways of talking, and the picture fits: we all change our voice many times a day without noticing. Tone belongs to music too: the quality of a sound. That is why we say a message has a warm tone or a sharp tone, as if we could hear it. The linguist M. A. K. Halliday described the situation behind register with three ideas: field (what the talk is about), tenor (the relationship between the people) and mode (spoken or written). His book Language as Social Semiotic appeared in 1978. In this section tenor matters most: the closer the relationship, the less formal the words.

This section separates the two questions; it does not decide which mix is right. That depends on the reader, and later sections practise real readers. No informal word, contraction or greeting is keyed wrong here unless the item names a reader it does not fit. Politeness ladders and the shape of polite questions belong to Sentence Types (ch11, S17 and S21). Tone words such as sarcastic and respectful get their own section later in Practice.

1. Ask two questions of every message: how formal is it, and how does it sound?
2. Describe a message with both answers: formal and warm, informal and cold.
3. Do not let formal slide into cold; add a warm word when the reader should feel thanked.
4. Do not assume chatty words are kind; check what the message says about the reader.
5. Treat informal words as choices, not mistakes.
6. Judge tone from the words, not from the topic.
7. Remember that polite and formal are different things.
8. Use the Reader Test to set both sliders before you write.

• Thanks a ton, Aarav, you're a star!
• The staff of Green Park School are most grateful for your kind help at the Diwali mela.
• All forms must be submitted to the Kochi office by Monday.
• Whatever, Tom. Just send it and stop asking me.
• Dear Ms Clarke, thank you for the lovely farewell card.
• Hi Yuki! The picnic is off, but let's try again next week.

• Respected Ma'am, I am sorry that I missed your class on Friday.
• Congrats, Kabir! You totally deserved that prize!
• The Anna Nagar branch library will be closed on Thursday for cleaning.
• Your payment is overdue. Please pay within seven days.
• "Oh great, another Monday," Emma groaned.
• It was a pleasure to have you with us in Nairobi, and we hope to welcome you again.

Formal and informal words: get or obtain?

Many ideas have two standard words: an everyday one and a formal one. They mean nearly the same thing. They differ in who they usually fit.

The everyday word is not a mistake. Get, buy and help are standard in formal writing too, and many careful writers prefer them. The formal word is a choice for readers who expect it: officials, strangers, forms, notices.

This is the fourth step of the Reader Test in its smallest form: once you know the reader, choose each word to fit.

The pairs are not all equally far apart. Some everyday words are welcome almost everywhere; others belong mostly to speech and friendly writing.

So the everyday member of a pair is not always informal. Get and help sit in the neutral middle and fit nearly every reader. Kids and OK lean more clearly informal: a school notice to parents would usually say children, and a formal reply would say acceptable or suitable.

The formal member has a risk of its own. Swapped in for a close reader or an everyday moment, it sounds stiff or comic: 'I shall commence my breakfast.' 'Kindly assist me in locating the remote.' That is the over-formal swap, and it is the most common register slip in this section.

Picture two coats on a hook by the door: a comfortable jacket and a formal blazer. Both are good coats. You pick one for where you are going. Wearing the jacket to most offices is fine; wearing the blazer to play cricket with friends looks odd. Everyday and formal words work the same way: both are proper clothes for a sentence, and the occasion decides.

Words are not the only register choice. Contractions - don't, can't, I'm - also sound more spoken than their full forms, do not, cannot, I am. Whether a contraction fits depends on the reader and sometimes on a school or exam format. That is the next section. After that come slang and the names of tones.

Here is the hard case: two words that are both standard for the same reader, and an item that wants you to pick one. Compare these two lines from a letter to a bank. I would like to get a copy of my statement. I would like to obtain a copy of my statement. Both fit. A bank officer reading either will not think the writer made a mistake. The second sounds a little more formal, and some writers prefer it in a letter. The first is plainer, and plain English guides often prefer it. Neither is keyed wrong. Now compare a line with a clearly informal word: Can you guys sort out my statement? That line does not fit a letter to a bank. You guys and sort out belong to friends and chat. The test is: would this reader be surprised by the word? A bank officer is not surprised by get. A bank officer is surprised by you guys. A close friend is surprised by obtain. This is why items in this section key a fit only when the stem names the reader, and never put get against obtain, help against assist or buy against purchase as key and distractor. When both fit, both are right; the item uses a word that plainly does not fit the reader as the distractor instead.

English has so many pairs of everyday and formal words partly because of its history. After 1066, French became the language of the Norman rulers, and many French words entered English alongside the older English ones. Later, many words were borrowed from Latin by scholars and officials. The older English word often stayed in everyday life, while the French or Latin word took the formal job. That is why you can start or commence, ask or enquire, buy or purchase. In each pair the first word is older English, and the second came into English from French or Latin. The same pattern shows in food. The animals in the field kept English names - cow, pig, sheep - while the meat on the table often took French-based names: beef, pork, mutton.

This section treats word pairs as register choices. It does not rank one word above the other in general: get, help and buy are standard in formal writing too, and no item keys them wrong without a named reader who plainly expects something else. Cutting long official phrases for length belongs to Conciseness (ch20, S28 and S33); this section asks only whether a word fits the reader. Slang, the newest layer of informal words, has its own section.

1. Learn the common pairs: get / obtain, buy / purchase, help / assist, ask / enquire, start / commence, kids / children.
2. Treat both members of each pair as standard English.
3. Ask who is reading before you choose.
4. Use the formal word where an official, a stranger or a formal notice expects it.
5. Keep the everyday word for friends, family and chat.
6. Remember that get, buy and help fit most formal letters too.
7. Never swap in a formal word just to sound clever.
8. Check that the formal word means exactly what you mean.

• Applicants must obtain a form from the Jaipur office before 5 May.
• The kids in our building in Mumbai play cricket every evening.
• We would like to enquire about the fees for the Pune summer camp.
• Staff at Edinburgh station will be happy to assist you.
• Is Saturday OK with you, Liam?
• Classes commence on 3 February at the Cape Town campus.

• You can get a new library card at the front desk of the Lucknow library.
• Ritu's family bought a new pressure cooker in the Diwali sale.
• Customers may purchase tickets online or at the Howrah counter.
• "I shall commence my breakfast now," Oliver announced, and everyone laughed.
• Dear Mr Hughes, please let us know if the new time is acceptable.
• Ana asked the guide in Lima when the museum opened.

Contractions: don't or do not?

A contraction joins two words into one spoken-sounding word. The full form keeps both words. Both are standard English.

The contraction sounds like speech: friendly, quick, relaxed. The full form sounds more careful, and it can add weight to a word such as not: "I do not agree." Many formal letters and exam essays use full forms, and some formats ask for them.

This is the fourth step of the Reader Test for one small choice: who is reading, and does a stated format decide?

Where do contractions usually appear, and where do full forms usually appear? The picture is a scale, not a wall.

Full forms also change the tone. "I won't go" and "I will not go" say the same thing, but the full form puts stress on not. That is why a serious refusal often uses it, even in speech: "I will not stay quiet about this."

And a single contraction in a careful letter is not a disaster. Many real formal letters use one or two. The question an item asks is narrower: does this line fit the format the stem states?

Picture a door between two rooms. With the door shut, the rooms are separate: do not, I am, it is. Open the door and the two rooms become one space: don't, I'm, it's. An open door feels relaxed and friendly; a shut door feels more careful and private. Both are proper houses. Some buildings - an exam hall, a formal letter with a stated format - ask you to keep the doors shut.

Contractions are a mild informal choice that almost everyone understands. Slang is a stronger one: the newest, most in-group layer of informal words - lit, chill, bunk, mugging up. Slang fits friends who share it and can puzzle or annoy readers who do not. That is the next section.

Here is the hard case: a contraction in an email to a teacher, and a learner who is sure it is wrong. Compare these two emails to a class teacher. Dear Mr Rao, I'm sorry I missed the test on Monday. I've attached the doctor's note. Dear Mr Rao, I am sorry that I missed the test on Monday. I have attached the doctor's note. Both fit. The first is friendly and polite; the second is a little more formal. Many teachers write to students with contractions themselves. Neither email is wrong, and neither is rude. Now add a stated format. Suppose the school's handbook says: 'Letters and emails to staff must use full forms.' Now the second email fits the format and the first does not - not because I'm is bad English, but because the reader has named a rule. The test is: has anyone stated a format? If yes, follow it. If not, ask the Reader Test questions: who is reading, and how close are you? For a teacher you know, both forms fit. This is why items in this section key a contraction as 'does not fit' only when the stem states a format or an instruction. Without one, a contraction is keyed as standard.

Some contractions are so old that nobody notices them any more. Won't comes from an older form of will not, which is why it does not look like willn't. Ain't has a long history in English speech, but it is informal and many readers disapprove of it in writing. One common word began as a contraction of a whole phrase: goodbye is a shortened form of God be with you, worn down over centuries of use. And some contractions exist only in speech. Gonna and wanna are how many people say going to and want to, but they are rarely written outside dialogue, song lyrics and chat. When you see gonna in a story, the writer is showing you how a character talks.

This section treats contractions as a register choice. How to spell them - where the apostrophe goes, it's against its - belongs to Apostrophes and Quotes (ch17, S3 and S27), and no item here asks about the apostrophe. No contraction is keyed as a grammar error. A contraction is keyed 'does not fit' only when the stem states a format or instruction that asks for full forms. Exam formats differ; this section describes them generically.

1. Treat contractions as standard English with an informal, spoken sound.
2. Use contractions freely with friends and family.
3. In a friendly email to a teacher you know, either form is fine.
4. Follow the format when a school, exam or office asks for full forms.
5. Use a full form to add weight: I will not, I do not agree.
6. Do not open every contraction in a friendly message; it will sound stiff.
7. Keep contractions natural in written dialogue.
8. Leave apostrophe spelling to ch17.

• I don't think the bus will come on time, Rahul.
• I do not agree with the plan to close the Kolkata branch.
• We cannot accept late applications at the Chennai office.
• Hi Ms Evans, I'm sorry I can't make it to the club on Friday.
• It's pouring in Manchester - bring your umbrella!
• The museum in Seoul is not open on Mondays.

• Please don't park in front of the gate - Sunrise Apartments, Bengaluru.
• I am writing to complain about the broken lift in Block C.
• You're coming to Nani's birthday, aren't you, Isha?
• "I will not stay quiet about this any longer," Grace said.
• Let's meet at the library at four, Jack.
• Visitors must not feed the animals in Nairobi National Park.

Slang and when it fits

Slang is the newest, most in-group layer of informal words. It is standard informal English among the people who share it.

Slang fits friends who share it. With a reader outside the group - an older relative, a principal, an examiner, a stranger - the plain word fits better, because the reader will understand it at once.

This is the Reader Test at its sharpest: slang works only if the reader shares it.

Slang has three habits that make it different from everyday words such as kids or OK.

That is why slang puzzles outsiders twice over: they may not know the word, and even if they do, it may mean something else where they live.

Everyday informal words are different. Kids, OK and thanks are understood by almost everyone, so they rarely puzzle anyone; they only sound more or less formal. Slang can stop a reader in their tracks.

Picture a secret handshake. With your friends it is fun and quick; everyone knows it, and doing it says you belong. Try it on a stranger, and they stand with their hand out, puzzled. Slang is a handshake made of words. It works beautifully inside the group and needs a plain handshake - a plain word - for everyone else.

You can now hear register in single words, contractions and slang. The next section turns to tone and names it: cheerful, serious, angry, sarcastic, worried, respectful. You will learn to find the words that show a tone and to name the tone from the words, not the topic.

Here is the hard case: a word that was slang once and is now everyday, and a reader who may or may not share it. Compare these three lines. The film was cool. The film was lit. The film was excellent. Cool began as slang many decades ago. Today almost every English speaker knows it, and it sits closer to everyday informal words such as OK. Lit is newer and narrower; many older readers will not know it. Excellent fits any reader. So is cool slang? The honest answer is: it used to be, and it is now simply informal. Words move along that path all the time. Some slang dies; some becomes everyday; a few even become formal over time. This is why the section does not keep a fixed list of banned words. It asks the Reader Test question: does this reader share the word? For a friend, lit fits. For a teacher you know well, cool may be fine in speech. For an exam answer or an official letter, excellent fits. Items in this section always name the reader - a friend, Nani, the Principal, an exam answer, a newspaper - so that only one choice fits.

Some very ordinary words started life as slang. Mob began as a short form of a Latin phrase and was criticised as slang in the eighteenth century; today it is an everyday word. Slang is shared across varieties too. Many Indian students say bunk for skipping a class and mug up for memorising in a rush. Both are also heard in Britain, so the same slang can be shared across countries by different groups. And slang often turns words upside down. Bad, wicked and sick have all been used by different groups to mean excellent. That is why slang can puzzle outsiders so completely: the listener hears the old meaning, and the speaker means the opposite.

This section treats slang as a register choice. No slang word is keyed as a grammar error. Slang is keyed 'does not fit' only when the stem names a reader or setting that would not share it. Code-mixing - Hindi, Tamil or other words inside an English sentence - is a separate topic that Master takes up (S33); where yaar appears here, it is glossed and treated only as an informal word between friends. Swear words are outside this section.

1. Treat slang as informal English that belongs to a group.
2. Use slang with friends who share it.
3. Ask whether this reader shares the word before you use it.
4. Swap slang for a plain word in exam answers, formal letters and notes to officials.
5. Swap slang for a plain word with older relatives who may not know it.
6. Keep slang in written dialogue when it shows how a character talks.
7. Remember that slang changes fast and varies by place.
8. Never call slang bad English; call it a fit or not a fit.

• That film was lit, Arjun!
• Half the class bunked the extra period on Friday.
• Sana spent the whole night mugging up dates for the history test.
• Relax, Ben, the party is chill - just come as you are.
• Those new trainers are cool, Chloe.
• Wow, Thiago, that last goal was epic!

• "The film was excellent," Arjun told the class teacher.
• I was absent from the extra class on Friday.
• Priya is memorising the dates for the history test.
• Grandma asked Ollie what sus meant.
• The party will be relaxed, so please come as you are.
• The final in Buenos Aires was thrilling from start to finish.

Naming the tone: cheerful, serious, angry, sarcastic

A tone word names how a text sounds. The evidence is always in the words.

Name the tone from the words, not from the topic. An exam story can be cheerful; a party notice can be serious.

This is the Reader Test from the other side: when you read, ask how the words make you feel as the reader. That feeling has a name.

Some tones are easy to hear because a feeling word says them outright: furious, delighted, anxious. Others hide in how the writer speaks.

Sarcasm needs special care. The words are cheerful, but the situation is bad, and the speaker means the opposite. You hear it by checking the word against what is happening. Written sarcasm is easy to miss, because the reader cannot hear the voice, which is one reason a sarcastic text message can cause a quarrel.

Tone items in this section always give enough of the situation that only one tone word fits.

Picture a detective at a scene. The detective does not guess the story from the room's name - kitchen, garden, library. The detective looks for clues: footprints, a broken cup, a note. Naming a tone works the same way. Ignore the topic's name; collect the word clues - furious, patiently, must, oh brilliant - and let the clues name the tone.

You can now name a tone and find its words. The next sections put tone and register to work in real messages. First come letters and messages to friends and family: a warm opening, news, questions and a warm close, and the small differences between writing to a classmate and to a grandparent.

Here is the hard case: a line that could be cheerful or sarcastic, and the only way to tell is the situation. Compare these two. The sun came out just as the picnic began. "Perfect timing!" said Meena. The rain started just as the picnic began. "Perfect timing!" said Meena. The words Meena says are identical. In the first, the sun arriving is good news, so perfect timing is sincere and cheerful. In the second, rain arriving is bad news, so perfect timing clashes with the event, and the tone is sarcastic. That is why a tone item cannot be answered from one word alone. You need the word and the situation together. Cheerful words used for good events are cheerful. Cheerful words used for bad events are usually sarcastic. The same care applies to other near cases. Angry and disappointed can both follow bad news; the words tell you which. "How could you do this?" leans angry. "I really hoped we would win" leans disappointed. This is why items in this section always give the situation - who is speaking, what has just happened - and never set two near-synonyms such as angry and cross against each other. Only one tone word fits the evidence.

The word sarcasm comes from a Greek word meaning to tear flesh. That old meaning is a clue to why sarcasm stings: it is praise turned into a small bite. Written messages lose the voice that makes sarcasm easy to hear, so many people add signals to show the tone they mean: an emoji, a wink, or the letters /s, which some online groups use to mark a sarcastic line. Even punctuation can shift the tone of a single word. "OK." with a full stop can sound cool or cross in a text message, while "OK!" sounds cheerful. The word is the same; the reader hears a different tone. Capitals as tone signals belong to Capitalization (ch18); this section keeps to the words.

This section names tones from words. Tone carried by marks - exclamation marks, ALL CAPS, emoji - is not tapped here; Capitalization (ch18, S32) treats capitals as shouting. Irony and understatement as figures of speech belong to Figures of Speech (ch26), and Master (S36) returns to hearing the gap. Items give enough of the situation for one reading and never set near-synonyms as key and distractor.

1. Name the tone with a precise tone word: cheerful, serious, angry, sarcastic, worried, respectful, excited, disappointed.
2. Point to two or three words that show the tone.
3. Ignore the topic; let the words decide.
4. Check cheerful words against the situation to catch sarcasm.
5. Look for feeling words first, then commands, deadlines and what the writer says about the reader.
6. If no words back up your tone word, try another.
7. Avoid vague words such as good or nice as tone names.
8. In your own writing, choose the tone first, then the words that carry it.

• We won the inter-school quiz in Bhopal - what a brilliant day!
• The river in Patna has risen sharply; families near the bank should move to higher ground tonight.
• Farhan texted: I am furious that the bus left without us again.
• "Oh, brilliant. Another delayed train," muttered Hannah.
• With respect, Mr Doyle, may I add one more point?
• Happy birthday, Kenji! Hope your day is full of cake and friends!

• Sadly, the school trip to Ooty has been cancelled because of landslides.
• Thank you, Ma'am, for guiding us so patiently all year.
• "Great, the Wi-Fi is down again just before my online test," Rohit sighed.
• Our maths exam began with a pigeon flying round the hall, and even the invigilator laughed.
• "Stop teasing my little brother right now!" Emily said.
• Tomorrow we fly to Nairobi, and I can hardly sleep!

Letters and messages to friends and family

An informal letter or message has four parts. Each part has several standard choices, and the reader decides which one fits.

This is the Reader Test at work: who is reading, what they need and how close you are decide the greeting, the news, the questions and the close.

A letter and a message are cousins, not twins. A message on a phone is shorter and often drops the parts a letter keeps.

All of these are standard. A message that says only "Reached Chennai safely. Will call after dinner." is complete for a parent who is waiting to hear.

Elders often expect a little more respect even in a warm letter. In many Indian families a letter to a grandparent may open "Respected Dadaji" or "My dear Nani", send greetings to the whole family and close "With love and respect". That is the same warmth with more care.

Picture a letter as a visit to someone's home. The opening is the knock and the hello at the door. The news is what you bring in your hands. The questions are when you sit down and ask how they are. The close is the goodbye at the gate. You would not arrive at your best friend's house with a formal handshake, and you would not leave your grandmother's house with a shrug. Each part of the visit fits the person you are visiting.

What happens when the reader is not a friend or relative at all, but a principal, an editor or an office you have never visited? Then the letter follows a set format, with fixed openings such as Dear Sir/Madam and closes such as Yours faithfully. That is the next section. Later, Craft looks at emails, which sit between the two.

Here is the hard case: a relative who is family but not a close friend. Compare these two openings for a letter to a great-uncle you have met twice. Hey Uncle! What's up? Dear Mohan Chacha, I hope you and Chachi are keeping well. Both are family letters, so both are informal in a way. But the Reader Test asks how close you are, and here the answer is: related, but not close, and older. The first opening treats the reader like a classmate; the second is warm but careful. Most families would find the second a better fit. Now take a cousin your own age whom you text every day. For that reader, "Hey!" is right, and "I hope you are keeping well" might even sound distant. So the word family does not decide the register. Closeness and age do. A grandparent you speak to daily may love a cheerful, chatty letter; a relative you hardly know may expect more respect. When you are unsure, a warm but careful opening such as Dear, and a close such as With love, fits almost every relative. That is why items in this section always name the reader and, where it matters, how close you are.

Dear is one of the oldest words in a letter, and it once meant exactly what it says: precious, valued. Over the centuries it became a formula, which is why the same word opens a letter to a best friend and a letter to a bank. Nobody reading Dear Sir thinks the writer loves the bank. P.S. is older than most people guess. It stands for the Latin post scriptum, 'written after', and it comes from the days when a letter written by hand could not be edited: if you forgot something, you added it below your name. In India, many families once kept in touch on the blue inland letter card, a single sheet that folds into its own envelope. Its small space trained writers to fit greetings, news and questions into a few careful lines.

This section treats the register of informal letters and messages: openings, news, questions and closes. Formal letters, with Dear Sir/Madam and Yours faithfully, are the next section. Emails to teachers and offices are in Craft (S25). Hey, Hi, Dear, Love, Take care and See you soon are all standard; none is keyed wrong unless the stem names a reader it does not fit. The apostrophe in a contraction belongs to Apostrophes & Quotes (ch17).

1. Picture the reader before you write the first word.
2. Open warmly: Dear or Hi for a friend, a more careful greeting for an elder.
3. Give real news, the kind the reader would ask about.
4. Ask at least one question about the reader's life.
5. Answer anything the reader asked you last time.
6. Close warmly: Love, Take care or See you soon, not Yours faithfully.
7. Leave out slang an older reader may not know.
8. Keep the address and date if your school format asks for them.
9. Read the finished letter as the reader would, and change any line that would surprise them.

• Dear Riya, Thanks for the photos from Shimla - you look frozen!
• My dear Nani, I hope your knee is better now. With love, Aarav
• Respected Dadaji, we all touch your feet and send our love from Lucknow.
• Hi Ollie! Guess what - I've joined the swimming team. Write back soon!
• Dear Aunt Susan, thank you so much for the jumper; it fits perfectly. Lots of love, Grace
• Dear Mateo, how was the football final in Buenos Aires? Did your team win? See you in July, Priya

• Hey Kabir, sorry I missed your call - exams! I'll ring you on Sunday. Take care, Ananya
• Dear Meher, I had a lovely time at your birthday party. Yours faithfully, Tanvi
• Reached Chennai safely. Train was on time. Will call after dinner.
• Dear Grandad, I miss our walks by the river. How is Biscuit? Love from Ellie
• Hi Jack, great news - we're moving to Leeds in June! Can't wait to show you the new house.
• Dear Yuki, thank you for the postcard from Kyoto. Tell me about your new school! Warm wishes, Rohan

Formal letters: from Respected Sir to Yours faithfully

A formal letter opens and closes with set words. The opening depends on whether you know the reader's name; the close usually follows the opening.

American letters often close Sincerely, or Sincerely yours, after any opening. This is the Reader Test at work: the reader is a stranger or a senior, so the opening and close follow the format that reader expects.

The opening and close are only the frame. Most school and office formats ask for the same parts in the same order.

Formats differ. Some put the sender's address on the left, some on the right; some write Sub: for Subject. Follow the one you are given.

Inside the frame the register stays formal: full sentences, polite requests such as "I request you to" or "Kindly", and no chat.

Picture a formal letter as a visit to an office. At the door you show the right pass - the opening - and it must match the person you have come to see: a named pass for someone you know, a general one for whoever is at the desk. On the way out you sign the register - the close - in the column that matches the pass you showed. Walk in with a friend's hug or leave with 'Love!' and the office stares.

Knowing the frame is half the job. What goes inside depends on why you are writing. Two of the hardest formal letters are the apology and the complaint, because feelings run high and the register must stay steady. That is the next section. Later, Craft looks at emails, which keep some of this frame, such as the subject line, and drop some of it.

Here is the hard case: two closes that both look right. Dear Sir/Madam, ... Yours faithfully, Dear Sir/Madam, ... Yours sincerely, In the British format, and in many Indian school formats, the first is the expected pairing: an unnamed reader gets Yours faithfully, and a named reader gets Yours sincerely. Under that format, the second breaks the pattern. But not every format pairs them that way. Many American letters close Sincerely whatever the opening. Many readers do not notice the difference at all. So the second letter is not bad English; it simply does not follow a British-style format. That is why this section never keys Yours faithfully over Yours sincerely unless the question states the format. "The school format says Dear Sir/Madam is followed by Yours faithfully" makes one close right. Without that line, both are standard, and a fair question cannot choose. In exams, read the instructions for a format and follow it exactly; that is where the marks are. In real life, follow the reader's country and custom, and when unsure, match the close to whether you used a name.

Faithfully and sincerely once meant something close to their everyday senses: faithfully, loyally, as a servant to a master; sincerely, truly and honestly. Today they are formulas, and nobody signing Yours faithfully is promising loyalty to a bank. A popular story says sincere comes from the Latin sine cera, 'without wax', as if sculptors once hid cracks with wax. Dictionaries treat that story as a myth; the word comes from the Latin sincerus, 'clean' or 'pure'. And the slash in Dear Sir/Madam is a modern fix. Older letters simply wrote Dear Sir to any unknown reader. The slash lets one opening fit any reader without guessing.

This section treats the openings and closes of formal letters and the frame around them. The formal words inside the body were in S12; apologies and complaints are the next section; emails are in Craft (S25); exam formats are treated generically in Master (S35), never as one board's scheme. Yours faithfully, Yours sincerely and Sincerely are keyed only when the stem states the format. Respected Sir/Madam and Dear Sir/Madam are both standard.

1. Ask first: do I know the reader's name?
2. With no name, open Dear Sir/Madam or, in Indian formats, Respected Sir/Madam.
3. With a name, open Dear Mr Iyer or Dear Dr Menon.
4. Match the close to the opening in the format you are given: Yours faithfully for no name, Yours sincerely for a name.
5. For an American reader, Sincerely is the usual close.
6. Add a subject line if the format asks for one.
7. Keep Hi, Love, Cheers and Take care for friends.
8. Sign with your full name, and your class if it is a school letter.

• Respected Sir/Madam, I request a transfer certificate for my son, Kabir Mehta of Class 6A. Yours faithfully, Anil Mehta
• Dear Sir/Madam, I wish to report that the streetlights on Nehru Road, Jaipur, have not worked for a week.
• Dear Mrs Nair, thank you for agreeing to judge our debate. Yours sincerely, Deepak Rao
• Dear Sir or Madam, I would like to apply for the summer job at Bristol Library. Yours faithfully, Chloe Baker
• Dear Ms Carter, thank you for the interview in Boston on Monday. Sincerely, Jake Miller
• Dear Mr Okafor, thank you for visiting our school in Lagos. Yours sincerely, Amara Obi

• Dear Editor, I wish to draw attention to the garbage on Park Street, Kolkata. Yours lovingly, Rahul Sen
• Hi, I need my ration card fixed.
• Respected Madam, I beg to state that I was absent on 4 July due to fever. Yours obediently, Harpreet Kaur, Class 7B
• Dear Mr Rodriguez, thank you for your order from our Chicago store. Sincerely yours, Daniel Brooks
• Dear Headteacher, I am writing to ask whether Sam may leave early on Friday. Yours faithfully, Helen Ward
• Dear Ms Lim, please find my application form for the Singapore art camp attached. Yours sincerely, Nurul Huda

Saying sorry and making a complaint

An apology and a complaint are mirror images. One says what you did wrong; the other says what someone else got wrong. Each has the same core parts.

This is the Reader Test at work: the reader needs to know what happened and what happens next, and the relationship sets how formal each line is.

The same apology changes register with the reader. The parts stay; the words move.

I'm sorry and I apologise are both standard; I apologise sounds a little more formal. Please and kindly are both standard in a complaint; kindly is especially common in Indian formal letters.

Watch two fake apologies. "Sorry if you were upset" blames the reader's feelings instead of owning the act. "Sorry, but ..." takes the apology back in the next breath.

Picture an apology as returning something you broke: you hand it back, point to the crack, say it was you, and hold out the glue. Picture a complaint as a note pinned to a broken machine: what is broken, since when, and what you need done. Shouting at the machine does not fix it; a clear note for the repair person does.

An apology or a complaint can start in the right register and slip halfway: a formal letter to the principal that ends "I was super sick lol", or a friendly note that suddenly sounds like a notice. Keeping one register from the first line to the last is the next section. Craft returns to softening a request or a no (S29).

Here is the hard case: telling a firm complaint from an angry one. Compare these two last lines. Kindly repair the pump by Friday, as forty families depend on it. Repair the pump by Friday, or you will be sorry. Both are firm. Both give a deadline. The first adds a reason, forty families, and asks politely. The second adds a threat, and a threat makes the reader defend themselves instead of helping. The first is firm; the second is angry. Now compare a complaint that is polite but weak: "I am so sorry to trouble you, but I wonder if possibly the pump might be a little broken?" It is polite, but it hides the problem and asks for nothing. The reader may not even notice it is a complaint. So a good complaint sits between the two: clear about the problem, specific about the facts, direct about the fix, and free of insults and threats. The test is simple. Could the reader act on it at once? Would they want to? That is why items in this section always say which reader the complaint goes to and ask for the line that is firm and polite together.

Apology did not always mean saying sorry. The Greek apologia meant a speech in defence, and Plato's Apology is Socrates' defence at his trial, not an admission of guilt. English kept that older sense in a few phrases: an apologist is someone who defends a cause. Complain comes, through French, from the Latin plangere, to beat the breast in grief. The first complaints were laments, not letters to a shop. Customer-service teams often train staff to do in speech exactly what this section teaches in writing: say sorry, name the problem, own it and offer a fix - in that order.

This section treats apologies and complaints as register and content: owning the mistake, giving the facts and asking for a fix in words that fit the reader. The frame of a formal letter was the last section; softening a request or a refusal is in Craft (S29); the shape of a polite question belongs to Sentence Types (ch11). I'm sorry and I apologise, and please and kindly, are both standard and never keyed against each other.

1. In an apology, say sorry and name exactly what you did.
2. Own it: leave out if you were upset and but.
3. Offer a fix or say what you will do differently.
4. Match the words to the reader: Sorry, my bad for a friend, I apologise for a teacher.
5. In a complaint, name the problem, the place and the time.
6. Add any number the reader needs: an order number, a date, a flat number.
7. Say what fix you want.
8. Stay firm and polite: no insults, no threats, no sarcasm.
9. Read it once as the reader: could they act on it at once, and would they want to?

• Sorry, my bad! I'll bring your charger back tomorrow, Tara.
• I apologise for submitting my project late, Ma'am; I will hand it in by Friday.
• The streetlights on our lane in Indore have been off for ten days. Kindly have them repaired.
• The washing machine I bought in Leeds on 2 March has leaked three times. Please replace it or refund me.
• I'm sorry I forgot your birthday, Lucy. Can I take you for pizza on Saturday?
• We are sorry that your parcel reached Nairobi a week late. We have refunded the delivery fee.

• Your useless department never does anything!
• Oh, so sorry, Your Highness Arnav, that your tea was two minutes late.
• The tiffin delivered to our office in Hyderabad on 5 June was cold and one roti was missing. Kindly refund Rs 80.
• I apologise for the noise from our party last night, Mr Wright. It will not happen again.
• The 8.15 bus from Didsbury was late again - sort it out!!!
• Dear Customer Service, the headphones from order 45821 arrived in Dubai with a broken switch. I would like a replacement, please.

Keeping one register

The first line of a message sets its register. Every line after it keeps that register, or it slips.

This is the Reader Test at work: the reader and the relationship set the register once, at the top, and every later choice is checked against the same reader.

Slips come in a few families. Knowing them makes them easier to spot.

The slip upward has its own family: office words in a friendly chat - kindly confirm, the aforementioned, your presence is requested. The fix is the everyday word the rest of the chat uses.

Yaar (Hindi for friend or mate) is a natural word in a chat between friends. It slips only because this message opened formally.

Picture a register as the key a song is sung in. Once the band starts in one key, every note is chosen to fit it. A slip is one note from a different key: the tune is almost right, and the one wrong note is the only thing the audience remembers. You do not fix it by singing louder; you fix it by choosing the note that belongs to the key you started in.

You can now choose words, write letters to friends and officials, apologise, complain and keep one register. The last section of Practice asks for something harder: saying why. Each choice you make needs a reason someone else can check - the reader, the relationship, the format - never just a feeling that a word sounds wrong. That is the next section.

Here is the hard case: a word that is warm, not casual. Compare these two closing lines in a formal letter to a teacher who is retiring. Dear Mrs Joseph, thank you for six wonderful years of maths. We will miss you very much. Dear Mrs Joseph, thank you for six years of maths. It was fun, lol. Is wonderful a slip? Is miss you very much? No. Both are warm, but they are not casual: they are full words that fit a formal letter written with feeling. Tone and register are two questions (S11). A formal letter can be warm without leaving its register. Lol is different. It is a texting shortcut, and it belongs to a chat register, so in this letter it slips. The test is not whether a word shows feeling. It is whether the word belongs to the register the message set up. Wonderful, grateful and miss you belong in a warm formal letter. Awesome, lol and cheers belong in a chat. That is why items in this section always show the opening line, so the register the text set up is clear, and ask for the word that breaks it, never for the word that simply shows warmth.

People switch register many times a day without thinking: one voice for a friend, another for a teacher, another on the phone to a shop. Linguists who study how people speak call this style-shifting, and it is so natural that most people only notice it when someone gets it wrong. Lol is a good example of a word changing its job. It began as a short form of laughing out loud. Today many writers use it without laughing at all, to make a message sound lighter or friendlier - which is exactly why it slips in a formal letter: its job is to make things casual. Comedy often uses a deliberate slip. A character who speaks like a royal proclamation about a missing sock gets a laugh because the register does not match the subject. The same gap in a real letter only confuses the reader.

This section catches the unplanned slip inside one text. A shift of tone on purpose, with a signal, is Craft (S24), and revising a whole text that is too stiff, too casual or mixed is Master (S37). Slang, contractions, kindly and yaar are each standard in their own register; an item keys one as a slip only when the text's opening and its named reader set up the other register. All caps belongs to ch18 (S32).

1. Read your first line and name its register before you write the rest.
2. Check every later word against that first line.
3. In a formal message, swap slang for a full word: excellent, not awesome.
4. Spell out texting shortcuts: thank you, please, because.
5. Close a formal letter formally, not with Cheers or Luv.
6. In a chat, swap office words for everyday ones: can you come, not kindly confirm.
7. Fix a slip with a word from the same register, not an even stiffer one.
8. Keep warmth: wonderful and grateful are not slips.

• Respected Ma'am, I was absent on Monday as I was super sick lol.
• Dear Sir/Madam, I wish to report that the water cooler on the second floor is broken. Kindly have it repaired.
• Hey Aman! Party at mine on Saturday. Kindly confirm your attendance at the earliest.
• Dear Mrs Hall, thank you for the extra maths class. It was awesome sauce.
• Hi Sophie, the match got moved to Sunday, so we're meeting at ten. See you there!
• Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to apply for the art course in Nairobi. Thx in advance!

• Respected Sir/Madam, due to a family wedding, I request leave from 10 to 12 March. I shall make up the missed work.
• Dear Principal, our class would like a quiz club. It would be so cool, trust me!
• Hi Didi, reached hostel safely. Please be informed that the aforementioned parcel has been received.
• Dear Mr Price, I would be grateful if you could send the timetable. Cheers, mate!
• Good morning, everyone. Today our speaker is Dr Hughes, who will talk about bees.
• Dear Ms Santos, I regret that I cannot attend Friday's meeting in Manila. I have a doctor's appointment.

Explain your evidence

To explain a choice, name what the Reader Test found. Every choice in Practice has one of these reasons.

Each row is the Reader Test at work: who is reading, what they need, the relationship, and any format the task states.

A good explanation has three steps, and each one can be checked.

Some reasons look like evidence but are not. "Contractions are mistakes" is a false rule: don't is standard. "Formal is always better" ignores the reader. "It sounds posh" is a feeling. "Everyone writes it that way" is not a reason about this reader.

And sometimes the honest answer is "both fit". Dear Ms Rao and Good morning, Ma'am both suit a teacher; don't and do not both suit a friendly email. Naming a choice as a choice is evidence too.

Picture yourself as a detective presenting a case. Saying "the butler did it, I can feel it" gets you laughed out of the room. Saying "the butler's footprints are by the window" wins the case, because anyone can go and look. In tone and register, the footprints are the reader, the relationship, the stated format and the exact words on the page.

Practice has given you the tools: tone and register, word choice, letters, apologies, complaints and keeping one register. Craft now moves to harder readers and harder texts. It begins with reports and notices, where the reader needs facts without feelings, and asks you to keep your own opinion out of the words, so the reader can judge the facts alone.

Here is the hard case: telling a reason that fits this reader from a reason that sounds right in general. Compare two explanations for the same change, from "Hey!" to "Dear Sir/Madam," in a letter to a bank. Formal words are better English. The reader is a bank officer I have never met, so a formal opening fits. Both lead to the same change. But the first would also make you change "Hey!" in a message to your best friend, which would be wrong. The second works only because of this reader, which is exactly why it is evidence: it tells you when to make the change and when not to. Now take a harder pair: "I'm" and "I am" in a friendly email to a teacher. A reason like "full forms are more formal" is true, but it does not make the contraction wrong. Unless the school format asks for full forms, both fit, and the honest explanation says so. So a good explanation does two things. It names the reader or the stated format, and it names the choice as right, wrong or one of two standard options for that reader. That is why items in this section ask for the reason that names the reader, and reject reasons that would work for any reader at all.

Words change their tone over time, which is why evidence must come from today's reader. Nice once meant foolish in English; silly once meant happy or blessed. A writer centuries ago who called someone silly may have been paying a compliment. The same thing happens faster with slang. Cool has meant good for generations; many newer slang words sound dated within a few years. That is why this chapter never says slang is wrong, only that it fits friends who share it, today. And the Reader Test is older than any grammar book. Speakers have always changed their words for a king, a friend and a child. Writers simply learned to say why.

This section asks for reasons across Practice (S11-S19). It does not add new rules. The both-standard pairs stay both standard - contractions and full forms, get and obtain, please and kindly, Dear and Hi to a cousin, Yours faithfully and Yours sincerely without a stated format. Neutral tone in reports, loaded words and euphemism begin in Craft (S21-S23). No item asks about the apostrophe in a contraction (ch17).

1. Start every explanation with the reader: who is reading?
2. Add the need and the relationship if they decide the choice.
3. Name the stated format when a close or layout depends on it.
4. Point to the exact word that carries a tone.
5. Say 'both fit' when both choices are standard for the reader.
6. Call a slip a break in the register the text set up, not a grammar error.
7. Reject reasons that are feelings: it sounds nicer, it sounds posh.
8. Reject false rules: contractions are mistakes, formal is always better.
9. Check the reason would change if the reader changed.

• Respected Sir/Madam, I request a bonafide certificate for my scholarship form.
• Hi Meera! Can't make it today - see you Sunday?
• Oh, brilliant. Another power cut in Patna.
• Dear Sir or Madam, the lift at Oak House has been broken since 3 May. Please repair it this week.
• I'm so sorry I missed your recital, Grace; can I come to the next one?
• Dear Ms Alvarez, thank you for the tour of Lima. It was lit!

• Dear Principal, kindly grant me leave on Friday.
• We are grateful for your help with the flood relief camp in Assam.
• Submit the forms by Monday. Late forms will not be accepted.
• The bank in Leeds has received your documents.
• That film was lit, Harry!
• Dear Mr Sato, thank you for hosting us in Osaka. Yours sincerely, Anika Das

Writing with intent · ages 12–16

Neutral tone for reports

A neutral tone gives the reader facts and lets the reader judge. The Reader Test decides: the reader of a report needs information, not the writer's feelings.

Opinion words are standard English. In a diary, a review or a letter to a friend they are exactly right. They change only when the reader is the reader of a report.

When the report needs an opinion - a recommendation, a conclusion - mark it as one: In my view, The committee recommends, I think. A marked opinion is honest; a hidden one is not.

Opinion hides in more places than adjectives. A neutral edit looks at five kinds of word.

Two things neutral does not mean. It does not mean dull: a neutral report can be vivid with detail - the rain began at 2.10, the stage lights failed twice. And it does not mean hiding a hard fact to keep everyone comfortable: if the trip was cancelled because the bus company withdrew, the report says so plainly.

A report that needs the writer's view keeps it in its own place - a sentence that begins In my view, or a section headed Recommendation - so the reader can tell the facts from the judgement.

Think of a report as a clear window. The reader looks through it at the event and sees it for themselves. Every opinion word is a coloured sticker on the glass: one says awful, one says amazing. A few stickers and the reader sees the writer's colours instead of the event. A neutral report is the window cleaned, with any view the writer needs to share written on a label beside it.

In Practice you named a tone - cheerful, angry, sarcastic - from the words that carry it. Neutral is the tone you choose when the reader must judge for themselves. It builds on the same skill: find the words that carry feeling, then decide whether this reader needs them. The next section looks closely at single words that judge while they seem to describe - loaded words such as mob and crowd.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a report where the facts themselves are hard. Maya is the secretary of a school eco club. The club's tree-planting day went badly: of 60 saplings planted, 41 died within a month because nobody watered them in the holidays. The first draft of the report says: The tree-planting day was a total failure, thanks to the careless members who could not be bothered to water. Every idea in that sentence may be true, but the words judge: total failure, careless, could not be bothered. The members named in it will argue with the adjectives instead of fixing the watering. A neutral version: Of the 60 saplings planted on 5 June, 41 had died by 5 July. No watering rota was set for the holidays. Notice what did not happen. The report did not soften the news into Some saplings did not thrive. The number 41 is harder than total failure, because nobody can argue with it. And the cause is stated as a fact - no rota was set - rather than as a charge against people. If the club wants a view, it goes in its own place: Recommendation: set a watering rota before each holiday. A neutral report is often tougher than an angry one, because the facts do the work.

A neutral report can be more powerful than an emotional one. Compare: The flood was a terrible, heartbreaking disaster. and: The river rose two metres in six hours; 140 families left their homes before midnight. The first sentence tells the reader to feel sad. The second gives the reader a reason to, and the reader supplies the feeling. Many readers feel more from the second, because they have seen the height of the water and counted the families for themselves. This is why many news writers are taught to report the detail and cut the adjective. Emotion is not removed; it is handed back to the reader, who trusts it more because it is their own.

Opinion words are standard English and are never keyed as grammar errors; they are keyed as changes only when the stem names a neutral report, notice, minutes or news item. I think and In my view are keyed as honest markers of opinion, not as faults. Neutral is never keyed as leaving out a hard fact the reader needs. Loaded single words (mob, crowd) are treated fully in S22, euphemism in S23 and academic register in S26. Numbers in items are invented for the examples.

1. Name the reader of the report before you write: who needs these facts, and what will they decide?
2. Replace judging adjectives with numbers, times, names and quotations.
3. Cut sadly, luckily and obviously, or say whose view they are.
4. Turn everyone and forever into a count and a time.
5. Use neutral names for groups: the visiting team, not the lazy visitors.
6. Put any recommendation or view in its own marked place.
7. Keep hard facts plain; neutral is not the same as soft.
8. Keep detail - a neutral report can still be vivid.
9. Read the draft as someone who disagrees with you: would they accept each sentence?

• Ananya's first draft of the report said: The awful, boring assembly went on forever.
• Ananya's revision said: The assembly lasted ninety minutes.
• Rohan's notice read: The library will be closed on Friday for stock-taking.
• Oliver's club report said: Obviously, the new timetable is a disaster.
• Grace's revision said: Twelve of the twenty members said the timetable clashes with football practice.
• Kofi's science-fair report said: In my view, the solar oven was the strongest entry; it reached 90 degrees in forty minutes.

• Farhan's news item said: Heavy rain flooded three roads near the station on Tuesday.
• Divya's draft of the same item said: The terrible, shocking flood ruined everything.
• Sneha's minutes record: Members disagreed about the trip date; the vote was 9 to 6.
• Harry's match report said: The referee, who clearly hates our team, gave two penalties.
• Emily's lab note said: I think the plant grew faster because it had more light.
• Yuki's survey report said: Most students, 58 out of 90, walk to school.

Emotive and neutral words: loaded language

A loaded word carries a judgement as well as a meaning. The Reader Test asks what this reader needs: in a report, a history answer or a news item, the reader needs the neutral word, so they can judge for themselves.

The middle column is not always a single word. Sometimes the neutral choice is the fact itself: the price, the action, the number.

Loaded words are standard English. In a review, a speech, a story or a letter to a friend, a judging word is often exactly right. The question is only whether this text, for this reader, is meant to be neutral.

Loaded words hide in every word class, and some are easy to miss.

Verbs of saying deserve a special look. Claimed hints that the speaker may be wrong; admitted hints at guilt; insisted hints at stubbornness. Said makes no such hint, which is why many news reports use it again and again.

Small adverbs load a sentence too. The flyover finally opened suggests the reader should be impatient; Only 12 students came suggests the writer expected more. Sometimes that is the point - but in a neutral text, the reader should decide whether 12 is a lot.

Think of each loaded word as a word wearing a coloured jacket. Mob wears a red jacket that says danger; heroic wears a gold one that says admire. Crowd and volunteer wear plain clothes. In a story or a speech, the jackets can be right - they show the writer's view. In a neutral text, ask every word to take its jacket off and see what is left.

In S21 you changed judging sentences in a report into checkable facts. This section zooms in on single words that judge while they seem only to describe. It stops at noticing and choosing: using loaded words to persuade - picking them on purpose to move a reader - is a strategy for Argument and Persuasion (ch29). The next section looks at the opposite move, the soft word for a hard thing: euphemism.

Here is the case that takes judgement: when is there no neutral word? Arjun is writing a history answer about a group who took up arms against a colonial government. Some sources call them rebels, some freedom fighters, some insurgents, some patriots. Each word judges. Rebels and insurgents lean one way; freedom fighters and patriots lean the other. There may be no single word that every reader accepts. What does a careful writer do? Three moves help. First, describe the action: the group who took up arms against the government in 1857. Second, use the name the group or the event is widely known by, and say who called it what: British officials of the time called it a mutiny; many Indian historians call it the First War of Independence. Third, keep your own view in a marked place, if the task asks for one: In my view, the second name fits the evidence better, because... This is harder than swapping mob for crowd, and it is honest. The writer does not pretend a neutral word exists when it does not; the writer shows the reader where the judgement lies. Neutral, here, means naming the choice instead of hiding it.

Some of the most loaded words look the most harmless. Claimed and said differ by a hint. The student said the phone was stolen. The student claimed the phone was stolen. The second sentence makes many readers doubt the student - yet nothing false has been said. Even quotation marks can load a word. The club's 'volunteers' arrived at noon suggests they were not really volunteers at all. This is why careful editors read verbs of saying one by one, and why so many news reports repeat said, sentence after sentence. The repetition is deliberate: said is the verb that lets the reader decide whom to believe.

Loaded words are standard English and are never keyed as errors; they are keyed as not neutral only when the stem names a neutral text (a news report, minutes, a history answer, a notice). Kind words are keyed as loaded when they judge. Where no neutral word exists, the key describes the action or names who uses which word. Using loaded words to persuade belongs to ch29 and is not tested here. Historical naming is described with both names and who used them; no ruling is attributed to any named guide.

1. Decide first whether this text needs to be neutral: a report, a history answer or a news item usually does.
2. Read every noun for people and groups: crowd, not mob; group, not gang.
3. Read every verb of saying: said, unless the facts support claimed or admitted.
4. Check the small adverbs: finally, only, even.
5. Treat kind words as loaded too: heroic, brilliant, determined.
6. Where a neutral word is hard to find, describe the action or give the fact.
7. Where no neutral word exists, name who uses which word.
8. Keep judging words for texts that are meant to judge - reviews, speeches, stories.

• Priya's first report said: A mob gathered outside the hall.
• Arjun's report said: A crowd gathered outside the hall.
• Tanvi's coach called the captain determined; the other team's coach called the same captain stubborn.
• Jack's article described the new trainers as cheap.
• Sophie's article called the flood volunteers heroic.
• Mateo's report said: The council spent 2 million pesos on the park.

• Ravi's school paper said the new uniform rule was imposed on students.
• Meenakshi's revision said the new uniform rule was introduced in June.
• Sahil's friends called the new class monitor confident; a rival called the same monitor arrogant.
• Tom's headline said: Residents slam new parking fees.
• Olivia's revision said: Residents object to new parking fees.
• Wanjiru's report from Nairobi said the minister claimed the road was finished.

Euphemism: soft words for hard things

A euphemism is a soft word or phrase for a hard fact. The Reader Test decides whether it helps: does this reader already know the fact and need gentleness, or does this reader need the fact itself?

Passed away and died are both standard English. Neither is keyed wrong unless the setting is named: a condolence card welcomes either; a news report of an accident usually uses died.

Euphemisms fall into families. Knowing them helps you spot new ones.

The last family is mostly harmless: washroom and senior citizens are standard, respectful words, and no reader is misled by them. The middle families are where to look hardest, because the reader - an employee, a customer, a citizen - often needs the exact fact.

George Orwell wrote about this in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language. He argued that political writing often uses vague, soft phrases to make terrible acts sound acceptable, so that readers are given the phrase without the picture. His point still gives writers a test: can the reader see what actually happened?

Think of a euphemism as a soft cloth laid over something hard. At a bedside or a funeral, the cloth is a kindness: everyone knows what is underneath, and the cloth lets them look at it gently. In a news report or a company notice, the same cloth can be laid over something the reader has a right to see. Before you use one, ask: does my reader know what is under the cloth?

In S21 you kept a report neutral, and in S22 you removed words that add a judgement. A euphemism does the opposite of a loaded word: instead of making a fact sound worse, it makes it sound softer. The same test applies to both - does this reader get the fact they need? The next section looks at a whole text rather than single words, and asks when a change of tone is planned and when it slips by accident.

Here is the case that takes judgement: one soft word, two readers. A company is closing its Pune office. Ms Kulkarni, the manager, must tell the staff and write a notice for the company website. In the private meeting with each staff member, she says: I am very sorry - your role will end on 30 June. Role will end is gentle, but it is clear: the person hearing it knows exactly what it means, and the manager goes on to explain the pay and the help on offer. The draft website notice says: The Pune office is being rightsized as part of a strategic realignment. Now the reader is a customer, a supplier, a journalist. Rightsized and strategic realignment tell them almost nothing. How many people? Is the office closing? Will orders be affected? A plain version: The Pune office will close on 30 June; its 45 staff have been offered redeployment or redundancy pay. Orders are not affected. The same company used gentle words in both places. The difference is that in the meeting the reader got the fact, and in the draft notice the reader did not. Softening the delivery is kindness; softening the fact away is not.

Euphemisms wear out. A soft word chosen to replace a harsh one gradually picks up the harshness of the thing it names, and then a newer soft word is found. Linguist Steven Pinker called this the euphemism treadmill. The words for a room with a toilet show the pattern: lavatory, then toilet, then bathroom, restroom and washroom, each one softer than the last when it arrived. The same thing has happened with words for disability, old age and poverty. This is one reason the kindest word is not always the newest one. Many disabled people, for instance, prefer the plain word disabled to newer phrases. When in doubt, ask the people being described which word they use.

Passed away and died are both standard and are never keyed wrong outside a named setting. A euphemism is keyed misleading only when the stem names a reader who needs the fact (a news report, a recall notice, a staff notice, a customer). Respectful standard words (senior citizens, washroom) are not treated as faults. Orwell's 1946 essay is described, not quoted. The euphemism treadmill is attributed to Steven Pinker, who used the phrase in the 1990s; no date beyond that is claimed. Preferences among disabled people vary and are stated as many, not all.

1. Picture the reader: do they already know the hard fact?
2. At a condolence, a bedside or with a child, a gentle phrase is often the kind choice.
3. In a news report, a notice or a record, give the fact: died, dismissed, a fee rise.
4. Replace an incident with what happened: a fire, a fall, a crash.
5. Give numbers where a soft word hides them: 45 staff, 200 rupees more.
6. Soften the delivery - sorry, gently, with care - rather than the fact.
7. Keep respectful standard words such as senior citizens; they hide nothing.
8. When describing a group of people, use the word they use for themselves.

• Nandini's condolence card said: We were so sorry to hear that your grandfather passed away.
• Karthik's news report said: The bridge collapse killed four people.
• Zoya's company email to all staff said: Twenty colleagues will be let go in May.
• Ben's car advert said: pre-owned, one careful driver.
• Laura's history essay quoted an official report that called civilian deaths collateral damage.
• Tomas's letter to customers said the cafe was closing because of cash-flow challenges.

• Aarav's grandmother explained that the old dog had been put to sleep.
• Ishita's bank letter mentioned a revision in charges from 1 April.
• Pooja's school invitation welcomed senior citizens to Grandparents' Day.
• Jessica's newspaper wrote that the minister had been economical with the truth.
• Daniel's CV described the months after the shop closed as between roles.
• Ngozi's report said the airline had rescheduled 40 flights, when all 40 were cancelled.

Tone shifts: on purpose or by accident

A tone shift is a change in how the words sound: light to serious, calm to urgent, cheerful to sad. The Reader Test asks one question of every shift: was the reader prepared for it?

A shift is never judged as wrong English. It is judged by whether it serves this reader and this purpose.

Planned shifts use a small set of signals. None of them depends on a single linking word.

Accidental shifts have their own pattern. They usually happen when the writer's feelings leak into a text meant to carry a different tone: frustration in a complaint that began calmly, sarcasm at the end of a thank-you, a joke in a condolence. Reading the draft aloud, as the reader, is the quickest way to catch them.

Some texts must not shift at all: a legal notice, a set of safety instructions, an exam answer. Their readers need one steady tone throughout.

Think of tone as the road a reader travels on. A planned shift is a bend with a sign before it: the reader slows, turns and carries on. An accidental shift is a bend with no sign, taken at speed: the reader is thrown against the door. The bend is not the problem - roads need bends. The missing sign is.

In Practice you learned to keep one register throughout a message (S19). This section adds the other half: sometimes a text should change tone, and the skill is to do it on purpose with a signal. Register shifts inside one text - a formal letter with a chatty middle - return in Master (S37), where you will diagnose and fix whole texts that are too stiff, too casual or mixed.

Here is the case that takes judgement: when is humour welcome in a serious text? Kavya is writing the school newsletter's tribute to a teacher, Mr D'Souza, who has died after a long illness. The draft opens: Mr D'Souza once told a whole class that he would retire the day someone solved his famous puzzle. Nobody ever did. Is that line a joke in a text that should be serious - an accidental shift? Look at the reader and the purpose. The readers are students, staff and the family, who knew Mr D'Souza as a teacher who loved puzzles and laughter. The tribute's purpose is to remember him as he was. A gentle, true story that makes readers smile in recognition can be the warmest part of a tribute, if the text is prepared around it: the headline and first sentence give the sad news plainly, and the story follows as a memory. What would make it an accidental shift? A joke at someone's expense, a joke about the illness, or a joke placed before the reader has been told the news, so that the reader smiles and then learns he has died. So the same line can be right or wrong depending on where it sits and whom it honours. The signal here is the order: news first, then memory. The test is the family: would they be glad to read it?

Some of the most memorable writing depends on a tone shift that the writer holds back until the last possible moment. Many short stories keep a calm, ordinary voice while something frightening grows in the background. The calm voice is the shift waiting to happen: because the narrator does not panic, the reader begins to, and the ending lands harder than any shouted warning could. Speechwriters use the same effect the other way round. A speech about a serious subject may begin with a small, warm story, so that the audience relaxes and trusts the speaker before the hard part arrives. In both cases the shift is not an accident. It is the design.

A tone shift is never keyed as a grammar error; it is keyed as accidental or jarring only when the stem names the text's purpose or reader (a formal complaint, a condolence note, a neutral report). Humour in a serious text is keyed by placement and target, not banned. Signals are described as pauses, paragraphs, sentences that name the change and slow builds; no item is built on a linker (ch21). Irony and sarcasm as figures are treated in S36 and ch26; register slips inside one text in S19 and S37.

1. Decide the tones your text needs before you write: one steady tone, or a planned change.
2. Put the change where the reader can follow it - after a pause, a new paragraph or a heading.
3. Use a sentence that names the change when the shift is large: I also have some difficult news.
4. In stories, build a change over several sentences.
5. Give sad or serious news plainly before any memory or light moment.
6. Never end a polite message with a sarcastic line.
7. Keep one steady tone in notices, instructions, reports and exam answers.
8. Read the draft aloud as the reader, and listen for the line where the tone jumps.

• Aditi's farewell speech opened with a joke about the canteen, paused, and said: Now I want to say something serious.
• Nikhil's story began: The picnic was perfect - sun, mangoes, laughter. By four, the river had begun to rise.
• Shreya's email to a teacher was polite until its last line: Thanks so much for the marks - really generous.
• Ella's club newsletter moved from match results to a new heading: Mr Price retires this month after thirty years.
• Jake's complaint to the council started calmly and ended: Honestly, this is a joke.
• Amara's speech paused after a funny story and began a new line: Last week, the river took forty homes.

• Kavya's blog post about exam stress opened with a joke about lost pens, then gave a helpline number in a separate, plain paragraph.
• Imran's letter to the editor stayed calm and firm from first line to last.
• Lakshmi's wedding toast moved from teasing the couple to a quiet line: My father would have loved today.
• Rachel's restaurant review was fair throughout, then added: Anyway, the chef clearly can't cook.
• Sam's report on the charity run ended, after the facts, with a light line: Next year, we promise better weather.
• Chen's short story kept a calm voice while the storm grew, which made the ending more frightening.

Emails at school and work

An email's register lives in four places. The Reader Test chooses each: who is reading, what they need, and how well you know them.

Notice that the formal column offers several choices. Dear Ms Thomas, Good morning, Ma'am and Respected Ma'am all fit a teacher; many Indian schools use Good morning or Respected, and many schools abroad use Dear. Regards, Thank you and Warm regards all fit a work email. Choose by the reader and by the habit of the school or office.

Each part does its own job.

Register can relax as a relationship grows. A student who has emailed the same teacher all year may move from Dear Ms Thomas to Hi Ms Thomas if the teacher replies that way. A good rule: match or stay one step more formal than the reader's last email.

The shape of a polite question belongs to Sentence Types (ch11 S28), and cutting office phrases for length to Conciseness (ch20 S28). This section asks only whether each part fits the reader.

Think of an email as a visitor at an office door. The subject line is the note held up to the glass: what I am here about. The greeting is the knock and the hello. The ask is the reason for the visit, said clearly. The sign-off is the name given before leaving. A visitor who barges in with no note, no knock and no name may have a good reason - but the door is slower to open.

In Practice you wrote formal letters with set openings and closings (S17). An email borrows from the letter but is quicker and often less formal, and its register lives in four small places - the subject, the greeting, the ask and the sign-off. The next section moves to academic register, where the reader is an examiner or a teacher reading an essay or a report.

Here is the case that takes judgement: an email to a reader whose conventions you do not know. Priyanka, a student in Kochi, is writing to a professor in Canada, Dr Sarah Clarke, to ask about a summer research programme. Priyanka's teachers at school are used to Respected Ma'am and Good morning, Ma'am, both standard in many Indian schools. What should the greeting be? The Reader Test starts with the reader. A professor in Canada is most likely to be used to Dear Dr Clarke or Dear Professor Clarke, and may find Respected Ma'am unfamiliar - not wrong, just unexpected. Good morning also assumes the time the email will be read. Dear Dr Clarke is the choice this reader will read without a pause. The subject line matters more with a stranger: Enquiry: Summer Research Programme 2027 - Class 12 student, India. The first line says who is writing; the ask is clear; the sign-off gives a full name and school. And if Dr Clarke replies Hi Priyanka, - Sarah? Many readers would then use Dear Dr Clarke once more, or Hi Dr Clarke, until invited to use a first name. Matching the reader, or staying one step more formal, is a safe rule in any country. Nothing about Priyanka's school habits was wrong. They were made for different readers.

The subject line may be the most-read part of any email. A busy teacher, manager or admissions office may see dozens of subjects in a list and open only some of them straight away. The subject is often the only part of the email that every reader sees. That is why a good subject line works like a newspaper headline: what it is about, who it is from where that helps, and anything urgent. Leave on 12 March - Class 9B tells the teacher everything before the email is even opened. Many people spend minutes on the body of an email and seconds on the subject. Reversing that balance, a little, is one of the quickest ways to get faster replies.

Several greetings are standard for a teacher (Dear Ms Rao, Good morning, Ma'am, Respected Ma'am, and Hi Ms Rao once the relationship allows) and several sign-offs for work email (Regards, Thanks, Warm regards); none is keyed over another without a stated convention or reader. Informal choices (hey, u, lol, Love,) are keyed does not fit only under a stem naming a teacher, an official, a manager or a new client. Sir and Ma'am appear only where the stem states them. The polite-question shape is ch11's; office phrases and length are ch20's. Claims about readers abroad are hedged (likely, may).

1. Write the subject line first: what the email is about, plus your class or role if it helps.
2. Greet the reader by name and title if you know them: Dear Ms Thomas, Dear Dr Clarke.
3. Use Good morning, Ma'am or Respected Sir where that is the habit of the school or office.
4. Say who you are in the first line if the reader may not know you.
5. Make one clear ask with a date: Could you send the notes before Friday?
6. Sign off with Regards, Thank you or Warm regards, then your full name and class or role.
7. Match the reader's register, or stay one step more formal.
8. Keep hey, u, lol and Love, for friends and family.
9. Read the email as the reader before sending: could they act on it without writing back?

• Aryan's email to a class teacher had the subject: Leave on 12 March - Class 9B.
• Nisha's email to the class teacher opened: Good morning, Ma'am.
• Siddharth's email to the sports coordinator ended: Regards, Siddharth Menon, 10A.
• Emma's first email to a new teacher began: Dear Ms Thomas,
• Noah's first email to a new tutor, with no subject, said only: hey can u send the notes
• Fatima, an intern in Dubai, wrote to a manager: Could you send the sales figures for May by Thursday?

• Megha's email to a professor had the subject: Question on Assignment 3, Section B.
• Varun's email to a teammate at work signed off: Thanks, Varun.
• Anjali's email to the district office opened: Respected Sir,
• Chloe's email to a client began: I hope you had a good weekend.
• Oscar's email to the whole year group ended: Warm regards, Oscar Hughes.
• Ji-woo's email to a manager in Seoul asked: Would it be possible to move our meeting to Friday?

Academic register: essays and reports

Academic register is precise, careful and steady. The Reader Test decides: the reader of an essay or report wants to check your thinking, so every word should help them do that.

Everyday and slang words are standard English. They do not fit most essay and report formats because the reader wants exact terms, not because the words are wrong.

I and impersonal forms are both standard. Some teachers and formats welcome I argue; others prefer This essay argues. Follow the format you are given.

Academic register rests on three habits. Each has a fault on either side.

Notice the last column. Over-formal fog is as much a misfit as slang: it makes the reader dig for the point, and it can hide a thin idea behind heavy words. Many examiners mark it down.

Hedges such as suggests, may, appears to and in this sample are not weakness. They tell the reader exactly how strong your evidence is. One hedge per claim is usually enough; three in a row sound unsure.

Contractions follow the format too. Many essay and report formats ask for full forms (do not, it is); where a format allows contractions, they are not an error. Ch17 covers the apostrophe itself.

Think of an academic sentence as a measuring jug. The reader wants to read the level exactly. Slang is a jug with no markings - you can see there is something inside, but not how much. Fog is a jug wrapped in thick cloth - the markings are there, but hidden. Academic register is a clear jug with clear lines, and a hedge is the honest mark that says 'about 200 ml', not 'exactly 200'.

In the last section you chose the register of an email by its reader. An essay or report has a reader too - usually a teacher, an examiner or a scientist - and that reader wants to test your thinking. Academic register builds on neutral tone from the start of Craft: facts the reader can check, and opinions marked as yours. The next section turns to words that are heard rather than read, in speeches and interviews.

Here is the case that takes judgement: I in an essay. Meher is writing a Class 11 history essay on the question: How far did the Salt March change British policy? Two classmates give opposite advice. One says, 'Never use I in an essay.' The other says, 'Use I - it shows your argument.' Both are standard English, and both are used in published academic writing. I argue that the march mattered more abroad than at home is clear and honest about whose view it is. This essay argues that the march mattered more abroad than at home is equally clear and keeps the focus on the essay. What decides is the format: the teacher's instructions, the school's style sheet, or the exam's own guidance. What no format rewards is a claim bigger than its evidence. I think the march totally changed everything and The march changed everything are the same overclaim, with or without I. So Meher's real choice is not I or no I. It is: what exactly am I claiming, and how sure can I be? Follow the format on the pronoun; take care over the claim.

Hedges make academic writing stronger, not weaker. A student writes: This proves that music improves memory. The teacher asks one question - how many people did you test? - and the whole claim falls, because proves promised more than eleven classmates could give. Another student writes: In this small sample, students who studied with music recalled slightly more words, which suggests a link worth testing further. Every word of that can be defended. The reader trusts the writer more, because the writer has already said exactly how far the evidence goes. So suggests, may and in this sample are not signs of a timid writer. They are the academic way of being exact about strength, just as 104 degrees is exact about temperature.

Slang and everyday words are standard English; they are keyed as not fitting only under stems that name an essay, a lab report or an examiner. I and impersonal forms are both accepted, and so are contractions and full forms, unless the stem states a format that decides. Over-formal fog is keyed as not fitting because it hides the point, not because long words are wrong. Hedges are keyed as right when they fit the evidence; a stack of hedges is keyed as too many only where the stem asks for one clear claim.

1. Name your reader - usually a teacher or examiner who wants to test your thinking.
2. Replace feeling words with exact ones: a number, a name, a result.
3. Fit every claim to its evidence with suggests, may or in this sample.
4. Use one hedge per claim, not three.
5. Cut phrases added only to sound important, such as it is to be noted that.
6. Follow the stated format on I and on contractions.
7. Keep slang and chat words for speech and friends.
8. Read one paragraph aloud: if it sounds like a chat or a legal notice, adjust it.

• Aditi's first lab-report draft said: The experiment was a huge fail.
• Aditi's revision said: The experiment did not give the expected result.
• Farhan's essay concluded: These results suggest that light affects growth.
• Emily's essay opened: In this essay I argue that the railways changed village life.
• Thomas wrote: It is to be noted that the utilisation of the burner was undertaken by the group.
• Yuki's report said: The data may show a pattern, but the sample was only twelve plants.

• Rohan's draft said: It could perhaps possibly be suggested that the bridge is weak.
• Ishita's project file said: The stuff in the beaker turned blue.
• The school's format asks for full forms, so Kabir wrote: The figures do not match.
• Charlotte's essay said: This essay argues that the canal changed trade in the region.
• Oliver cut the fog: The committee approved the plan.
• Tomas's report said: In this sample of 40 students, most slept less than seven hours.

Register in speeches and interviews

A speech and an interview answer are formal, but they are heard, not read. The Reader Test becomes a listener test: the listener hears each sentence once, so the words must reach them the first time.

The assembly greeting in the last row is a standard Indian school convention. Good morning, everyone is standard too. Both fit; the occasion and the school's custom decide.

An interview answer sits between the two: Thank you for having me, and plain, complete answers. Not I humbly beg to state, and not Yeah, dunno.

Speech writers use tools that an essay editor might cut, because a listener needs them.

Interviews have their own balance. The panel wants to meet a real person who respects the occasion. Too stiff (I most respectfully submit that my humble self...) hides the person behind a script. Too casual (Yeah, it's kinda cool, I guess) seems not to respect the occasion. The fit is a full, plain answer, a reason and an example, in the words you would use with a teacher you like.

A contraction such as I'm or I've is normal in both speeches and interviews. Spoken formality comes from the whole answer, not from avoiding contractions.

Think of an essay as a map and a speech as a guided walk. A reader holding a map can stop, look back and trace the route with a finger. A listener on a walk only has the guide's voice: turn left here, look at this tree, now we are halfway. A speech needs the guide's words - look, now, remember, finally - because the listener cannot unfold the map again.

In the last section you chose academic register for a reader who studies your words on paper. A speech is the same formal occasion with a different mode: the words are heard once, in order. Everything from the Reader Test still applies - who is listening, what they need, the relationship - with one fact added: the listener cannot reread. The next section moves to words that are written and read, but in public and at speed: posts, comments and group chats.

Here is the case that takes judgement: one speech, a mixed audience. Saanvi is the school captain and will speak at the annual day. In the hall: the chief guest, the Principal, teachers, parents, and students from Class 1 to Class 12. The draft opens with Good morning, respected chief guest, Principal, teachers, parents and my dear friends, then moves to a joke that only Class 12 will understand, and ends with a paragraph copied from an essay on leadership. The greeting fits: it names every group, and it is the school's custom. The joke does not fit this audience. It is not rude, but most of the hall will not get it, and the chief guest may feel left out. The essay paragraph fits nobody who is listening - it was written to be read. A version that works for everyone: keep the greeting; replace the joke with a moment every group shares (the morning the rain flooded the ground and everyone helped); turn the essay paragraph into three short sentences and one question to the audience. With a mixed audience, choose words that reach the youngest listener without talking down to the oldest.

Repetition, which an essay editor often cuts, is one of a speech's best tools. In an essay, saying the same phrase three times usually wastes the reader's time. In a speech, it is how a listener knows what to take home. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. The reader of that line on paper might think it wordy; the listener in a hall remembers it on the way out. The same is true of signposts such as first, now the second thing and finally. On paper, headings do that job. Aloud, the speaker's words are the only headings the listener has. So a good speech can look slightly repetitive on the page. That is not a fault; it is written for the ear.

The Indian assembly greeting (Good morning, respected Principal, teachers and my dear friends) and a shorter Good morning, everyone are both standard; neither is keyed wrong, and the occasion and school custom decide. Slang and chat openings are keyed as not fitting only under stems that name the audience or panel. Contractions are normal in speech and are never keyed as too casual on their own. Interview items test the balance of respect and ease; an answer is keyed stiff only when it hides the person behind set phrases.

1. Name your audience: who is in the hall, or on the panel?
2. Greet them at the start and tell them clearly when you have finished.
3. Speak to the listener: you, us, put your hand up, look at this.
4. Use short sentences - one idea per breath.
5. Signpost: first, now the second thing, finally.
6. Repeat the one line you want remembered.
7. In an interview, give a full answer with a reason and an example.
8. Stay between stiff and slangy: speak as you would to a teacher you like.
9. Read the speech aloud before the day; cut any sentence you run out of breath in.

• Sneha opened the assembly: Good morning, respected Principal, teachers and my dear friends.
• Arjun's speech began: Look at the bottle in your hand.
• Kavya began the radio interview: Thank you for having me.
• Jack's draft speech said: It is imperative that we consider the multifarious ramifications of plastic use.
• Asked why maths, Sophie told the college panel: Yeah, dunno, I just kind of like it.
• Amara closed the debate speech: Thank you for listening.

• Tanvi's speech moved on: Now, the second thing I want you to remember.
• Vikram's vote of thanks said: We thank our chief guest for taking the time to be with us.
• Asked about a weakness, Aman told the job panel: I used to take on too much, so now I plan my week on Sunday evening.
• Grace's speech ended: Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today.
• Liam's interview answer began: I most respectfully submit that my humble self has always admired this company.
• Mateo opened the class presentation: Put your hand up if you came to school by bus today.

Register online: posts, comments and group chats

Every online space has its own reader. The Reader Test still decides: who is reading this group or page, what do they need, and how close are we?

Chat words, short forms and code-mixing such as chalo are standard in friends' groups; they are not errors. They fit less well as the reader becomes wider or more senior.

Online, the reader cannot hear your voice, so small signs carry tone. ALL CAPITALS reads as shouting (ch18 covers capitals), a string of exclamation marks as excitement or anger, and a face emoji as a smile or a wink.

Two facts make online register different from speech: it is often public, and it often lasts.

A joke that works in a friends' chat can hurt in public, especially if it names someone. A screenshot of a private message, posted publicly, turns a private register into a public one without the writer's choice.

Tone also slips online because the voice is missing. Fine. can read as cross, where Fine, thanks! reads as friendly. Many readers now take a full stop at the end of a very short text as a little serious or cold; others do not. When the reader matters, add a word of warmth rather than trusting a mark.

Think of your phone as a building with many rooms. The friends' group is your own room: shoes off, jokes, short words. The class parents' group is the school office: polite, brief, clear. A public page is the street outside, where anyone passing can read what is written on the wall - and the wall is not washed for years. Before you type, check which room you are standing in.

In the last section you chose words for a listener who hears them once. Online, the reader sees them at once, often in public, and can keep them forever. The Reader Test works the same way, but the reader is harder to picture: a post may be read by friends, family, teachers and strangers. The next section looks at one choice that runs through every register, online and offline - how soft or how direct a request or a no should be.

Here is the case that takes judgement: one piece of news, three spaces. The school's under-14 football team has reached the district final, and Kabir, who plays in it, wants to share the news. There are three places to post it: the team's friends' group, the Class 8 parents' group and the school's public page, which Kabir helps to run. In the friends' group, the right line is short and loud: WE'RE IN THE FINAL!!! Capitals and a string of exclamation marks read as excitement here, and every reader shares it. In the parents' group, the same line would read as shouting, and parents need facts: Good news - the under-14 team has reached the district final, which is on Saturday at 9 am at the municipal ground. Parents are welcome. On the public page, the reader is anyone, including the other team: Congratulations to our under-14 team on reaching the district final. We wish both teams a good game on Saturday. One piece of news, three registers, each right in its room. The skill is not writing one perfect post; it is writing three.

Online, a single full stop can change the tone of a whole message. Take a reply to a friend's long message about a new puppy: Nice. For many readers, especially younger ones, that full stop makes it sound flat or even annoyed. Nice! or Nice, so cute sounds warm. The words are the same; the mark changes what the reader hears. In a formal email, the full stop is simply normal and nobody notices it. So a mark that is neutral in one register can carry tone in another. Readers differ on this - some hear nothing in the full stop at all - which is exactly why, when the tone matters, it is safer to add a warm word than to trust a mark.

Chat words, short forms (hw, btw) and code-mixing (chalo, yaar) are standard in friends' groups; they are keyed as not fitting only under stems that name a wider or more formal group or page, and Hindi words are glossed. Tone carried by capitals, marks or emoji is tested by MCQ, never by tap; ch18 treats capitals. Claims about how readers take a final full stop are hedged, since readers differ. WhatsApp and Instagram are named only as familiar platforms; no platform rule is stated.

1. Check which group or page you are in before you type.
2. Picture the most senior or least familiar person who will read it.
3. Keep chat words, short forms and code-mixing for groups that share them.
4. In parents' groups and on school pages, greet, ask clearly and thank.
5. Avoid ALL CAPITALS unless the whole room shares the excitement.
6. Add a warm word when a short reply could sound cold.
7. Post publicly only what you would say to the whole room.
8. Never share a screenshot of someone's private message without asking.
9. Read your message once as its reader before you press send.

• Nisha wrote in the class parents' group: Good evening, everyone. Could someone share the date of the PTM? Thank you.
• Rahul posted in the friends' group: anyone up for cricket at 5? chalo
• Ishaan's comment under the city council's post said: This change will affect every school bus route in the city.
• Ella posted on the school's page: Congratulations to the under-14 team on reaching the final!
• Ben's review of a cafe said: WORST. CAFE. EVER.
• Lucia wrote in the class group a minute later: Sorry, wrong group! Please ignore.

• Asked by the friends' group how the exam went, Meera replied: Fine.
• Aarav replied to a cousin's baby photo in the family group: So sweet! Congratulations to you both.
• Zoya's class group has students and the class teacher, so Zoya wrote: Has anyone got the notes from today's lesson?
• George's complaint on the train company's page said: The 8.10 from Leeds has been cancelled three days running. Can you tell us why?
• Amelia's friend posted a screenshot of Amelia's private message on a public page, with the caption: lol look at this.
• Kwame's post in the neighbourhood group said: A brown dog with a red collar is near the bakery. Is it anyone's?

Softening and directness

A request can be softened or made direct. The Reader Test decides: how senior or close is the reader, and how urgent is the matter?

A direct imperative is standard English and is not rude on its own. Between close colleagues in a rush, Send it now is normal. It needs softening when the reader is senior, a stranger, or being asked for a favour. Ch11 covers the politeness ladder and the shape of a polite question.

Directness is right when time or safety matters: Stop! The floor is wet. Turn off the gas now.

Softening and directness each have a fault on the far side.

An over-softened no is a special trap. Maybe, I'll try, I'll see sound polite, but the reader may plan around a yes that never comes. A clear, kind no - I'm afraid I can't, with a reason and, where you can, an alternative - is politer in the end.

Softening also has a cultural side. In many Indian languages, respect is carried by verb forms and words such as ji, so a request can sound polite with no please at all; many British readers expect please and could you. The Master band explores this. For now, picture the reader, not only the words.

Think of softening as a volume dial on a request. Turned up high, the request is wrapped in could, perhaps, if you have a moment and a reason - right for a senior reader or a favour. Turned down low, it is Send it now - right between teammates in a rush. For a fire alarm, the dial is at zero and the message is at full volume: Leave the building now. The skill is setting the dial for this reader and this moment.

In Discover you asked nicely with can, could and may; ch11 showed how polite questions are built. This section turns that into a dial you set for each reader, and adds its other end - directness, which is right in an emergency and normal between close colleagues. It builds on the online section too: without a voice, a direct line can sound harsher than you mean. The last section of Craft puts every tool together in one real edit.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a no to someone senior. Rhea has just started as an intern at a design firm. On Friday afternoon, the team lead messages: Can you come in on Sunday to finish the brochure? Rhea has a family wedding on Sunday. Three drafts: No, I can't. Clear, but blunt to a senior person, and it offers nothing. Oh, I'll try my best, let me see what I can do, maybe... Soft, but the team lead may plan the brochure around Rhea coming in. On Sunday, the no arrives anyway - too late. I'm afraid I can't come in on Sunday - I have a family wedding. I could stay late on Monday, or finish the text sections from home on Saturday, if that helps. The third draft is softened with I'm afraid and a reason, but the no is in the first six words, and it offers two alternatives. The team lead knows exactly where things stand. A polite no is not a vague one. Put the no early, soften it with a reason, and offer what you can.

I'm afraid, in I'm afraid I can't come, has nothing to do with fear. The speaker is not frightened of anything. The phrase is a softener, a fixed way of saying I am sorry to tell you this. It turns a plain refusal into a gentle one in two words, and it is common in British and Indian English alike. The same is true of I was wondering if you could... The speaker is not really wondering; the past tense and the indirect question simply put a little distance between the request and the reader, which makes it easier to say no. Many softeners work like this: the words, taken literally, say something odd, and together they say be kind.

Direct imperatives are standard and are never keyed as rude on their own; they are keyed as not fitting only under stems that name a senior reader, a stranger or a favour, and keyed right where time or safety is named. Could, would, may and please are all standard softeners and are not set against each other as key and distractor. Items key over-softening only where the stem names urgency or asks for a clear answer. Ch11 owns the politeness ladder and the structure of polite questions; no item here tests word order after could you tell me.

1. Name the reader and the urgency before you ask.
2. For a senior reader, a stranger or a favour, add a modal: could you, would you.
3. Give a reason: as the deadline is 5, because the hall is booked.
4. Say no early, soften it with I'm afraid or I'm sorry, and give a reason.
5. Offer an alternative when you can.
6. For danger or real urgency, be direct: Stop, Leave now, Turn it off.
7. Use one or two softeners, not five.
8. Never let a maybe stand in for a no.

• Pooja emailed a colleague in another department: Could you send the slides today?
• Imran asked the printer: Would you mind printing it today, as the deadline is 5?
• The lab assistant, Vivek, called out: Stop! The floor is wet.
• Harriet replied to the invitation: I'm afraid I can't join on Saturday, but Sunday works.
• Jacob messaged a teammate an hour before the deadline: Send it now.
• Chen warned the customer: Hands off the tray - it is hot.

• Nikhil's first warning was: Would you mind perhaps stepping back a little?
• Asked to join the Saturday rehearsal, Tara replied: I'll try, let me see, maybe.
• Dev suggested to the team: Maybe we should move the meeting to Thursday.
• At home, Emily's dad called: Close the door, the cat's getting out!
• Oscar wrote to the head of department: I was wondering if you could look at my draft before Friday.
• The pool lifeguard, Ana, shouted: Out of the water now - lightning!

Edit for a real reader

An edit for a real reader runs the Reader Test on every sentence: who reads this, what do they need, and what is our relationship? Then it checks five things.

Kindly and please are both standard in a request to an official; so are several greetings and closes. The edit chooses what fits the reader and the school's format, not the longest phrase available.

The same news often goes to several readers. Each version keeps the facts and changes the register.

Notice what the edit does not do. It does not make everything more formal: the assembly line is short and spoken, and the friends' line keeps its excitement. It does not cut hard facts to be polite: 200 students after dark stays in, because it is why the repair matters. And it does not change the writer into someone else. Kiran's urgency survives in the date and the numbers.

Edit in this order: first the reader, then the facts, then the tone words, then the request, then one last read for register slips.

Think of an edit as tailoring, not buying a new suit. The first draft is the cloth: the facts, the purpose, the writer's care. The tailor does not throw it away or cover it in gold braid. The tailor measures the wearer - the reader - and takes it in here, lets it out there, and changes the buttons, until the same cloth fits. A good edit leaves the reader thinking the writing was made for them, and the writer still recognising it as their own.

This section uses every Craft tool at once: neutral facts from S21, loaded words from S22, euphemism and hard facts from S23, one register kept or shifted with a signal from S24, emails from S25, careful claims from S26, speech from S27, online groups from S28 and the softening dial from S29. Master asks the questions underneath all of them: what register is, how varieties of English choose it, and how to defend each choice.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a complaint that has already been ignored. Kiran's email went on 4 March. Two weeks later there is no reply and the light is still off. The council is angry, and one member's draft of the follow-up says: Since you obviously do not care about children's safety, we will go straight to the newspapers. The anger is understandable, and the facts behind it are real. But the line judges (obviously do not care), threatens, and gives the officer nothing to act on. It invites a defensive reply or none. The opposite draft, from another member, says: Sorry to bother you again, so sorry, please ignore this if you are busy. It is polite, and it asks to be ignored. The edit keeps the firmness and drops both the insult and the apology: We wrote on 4 March about the streetlight outside Gate 2, which has now been off for sixteen days. We have had no reply. Could you let us know by 22 March when the repair is planned? We are copying this email to the Principal. Firm is not the same as angry, and polite is not the same as meek. The facts, the date and the named copy carry the pressure; the words stay courteous.

The most effective complaints are often the calmest. A complaint full of capitals and insults tells the reader how the writer feels, and the reader's easiest move is to defend themselves. A complaint that says exactly what is wrong, since when, how many people it affects and what is wanted by when gives the reader nothing to argue with except the repair. Many offices, schools and companies sort their inboxes by what they can act on. A calm email with a date and a number is often simply easier to pass to the person who can fix the problem. The writer's anger has not disappeared; it has been turned into facts - sixteen days, 200 students, 20 March - which are harder to ignore than adjectives.

Several choices fit an email to an official - Dear Sir or Madam, Dear Sir/Madam or a named officer; kindly or please; Yours faithfully or Yours sincerely by stated convention - and none is set against another as key and distractor. Informal and code-mixed lines are keyed as fitting in the friends' version and as not fitting only under stems that name the ward office or a formal reader. Items key edits that lose a fact or the request as changing too much. All people, places and dates are invented; no real ward office or procedure is described.

1. Name the reader before you touch a word.
2. Keep every fact the reader needs: what, where, since when, how many.
3. Change words that judge into facts that can be checked.
4. Soften the request for a senior reader, and give it a date.
5. Keep one register from greeting to close.
6. Do not make everything more formal: fit, not length, is the aim.
7. Write a new version for each new reader, keeping the facts.
8. Read the final draft once as its reader, and once as its writer: does it still sound like you?

• Kiran's first draft to the ward office began: Hey, the streetlight outside our school is busted.
• Kiran's edit began: Dear Sir or Madam, the streetlight outside Gate 2 has not worked since 3 March.
• Aarav's line in the draft said: The useless ward office has ignored us for weeks.
• Olivia kept the request and added a date: Kindly have it repaired before exam week begins on 20 March.
• Henry kept a line from the first draft: Students walk this road after dark on tuition days.
• Nadia wrote the class-group version: Update: the ward office says the light will be repaired by Friday. Thanks, all!

• Zoya's follow-up said: We wrote on 4 March and have had no reply.
• Rohit's first follow-up draft said: Since you obviously do not care about children's safety, we will go to the newspapers.
• Ishita's speech at assembly said: Put your hand up if you walk home past Gate 2.
• Emma's version of the email closed: Thank you for your help.
• Jack's draft said: Sorry to bother you again, so sorry, please ignore this if busy.
• After the repair, Sipho wrote to the ward office: Thank you for repairing the streetlight so quickly; students feel safer walking home.

Thinking like a writer · ages 16–19

Register as a scale

M. A. K. Halliday, in Language as Social Semiotic (1978), described register by three features of the situation. Change any one and the words move.

Tenor is the Reader Test's third question - what is my relationship to them? - given a name. Field and mode are the two facts the test takes for granted: what you are writing about, and whether the reader hears you or reads you.

Martin Joos, in The Five Clocks (early 1960s), offered a second way to see the scale: five styles, from the most fixed to the most private.

Joos's five styles and Halliday's three features are two lenses on one idea. Joos names the stops on the scale; Halliday explains what moves you between them. Neither says that one end is better. A frozen pledge would be absurd in a text to a sibling, and an intimate text would be absurd in a pledge.

Keep the frameworks at this level. They are descriptions, not rules; no exam will ask you to recite them, but they give you words to defend a choice.

Picture a dimmer switch rather than an on-off switch. An on-off switch gives you two states, formal and informal. A dimmer gives you every point in between. Three hands can turn it: the topic, the relationship and the channel. When any one of them moves, the light changes a little - and a good writer turns the dimmer to the exact brightness the room needs.

This section builds on Craft S30, where you edited a text for a real reader. Practice S11 separated tone from register; Discover S2 and S6 showed that a friend, a teacher and a stranger get different words. Here those contrasts are placed on one scale with three named causes. S32 turns to Indian English registers - conventions that sit at particular points on this scale for particular readers.

Here is the hard case: two texts that look the same distance from formal, moved by different hands. Nandini, a Class 12 student in Pune, writes two messages about the same chemistry practical. The first goes to a lab partner: "Titration done, got 24.6 ml, yours?" The second is the practical record: "The titration was completed and the end point was reached at 24.6 ml." Someone using two boxes calls the first informal and the second formal, and stops. But look at what moved. The field is the same: titration, one reading. The mode is the same: both are written. Only the tenor changed - a partner and equal, then an examiner who will mark the record. That one change moved the text from casual to formal. Now a third message. Nandini explains the same result aloud in a viva: "We got the end point at 24.6 millilitres, which was close to what we expected." The tenor is the examiner again, but the mode is spoken, so the text sits between the two - consultative, with shorter phrases and "we" in place of the passive. The lesson is exact: two texts can differ by one feature or by two, and saying which feature moved tells you which words to change. A viva answer does not need the passive of a record; a record does not need the shorthand of a lab-partner text.

The same words can move along the scale without a single word changing. "We regret the delay" printed on a railway display board sits at the formal end: one-way, fixed, from an institution to strangers. Said face to face by a station officer to one tired traveller, with a pause for the reply, the same four words land nearer consultative. Only the mode and the closeness of the moment changed. A second surprise: many people move along the whole scale in one morning without noticing. The same student may recite a pledge at assembly (frozen), answer a question in class (consultative), joke at break (casual) and text a sibling at lunch (intimate). The skill this chapter teaches is not new; it is making a habit you already have deliberate.

Halliday's field, tenor and mode are given here in plain terms from Language as Social Semiotic (1978); the full theory is richer than this summary. Joos's five styles come from The Five Clocks (early 1960s); linguists since have debated how many stops the scale has, and five is one useful description, not a law. No exam format is described. Nandini and every name in the items are invented.

1. Place a text on a scale, not in one of two boxes.
2. Name what set its place: the topic (field), the relationship (tenor) and spoken or written (mode).
3. When a reader changes, move the text one stop at a time before rewriting it completely.
4. Remember that spoken texts sit further along the scale than the same words written.
5. Do not treat a technical topic as automatically formal, or a light topic as automatically casual.
6. Use Halliday and Joos to describe and defend a choice, never to rank one end above the other.

• The notice read: The inter-school debate stands postponed until further notice.
• Mrs Kapoor told the class: Right, the debate's off for now - I'll give you the new date soon.
• Ishaan texted a best friend: noooo, all that prep. chai later?
• Dear Mr Hughes, Thank you for your letter of 3 May about the rent.
• Olivia left a voice note for a flatmate: running late, save me a seat.
• In Nairobi, the court clerk read the oath aloud, and Wanjiru repeated it word for word.

• Dr Menon told a colleague: The patient presents with acute appendicitis.
• Dr Menon told the patient's parents: Your son needs a small operation today, and we will take good care of him.
• Priya's lab record said: The solution turned blue after 40 seconds.
• Jack's match report for the club newsletter: The visitors equalised in the final minute.
• At the dinner table, Emily said: Guess who scored in the last minute!
• In Seoul, Min-jun wrote to a new landlord: Could you let me know when the boiler will be repaired?

Indian English registers

Set Indian English formal conventions beside the forms many readers abroad expect, and the difference is one of audience, not of correctness.

Every form in the first column is standard where it is used. The Reader Test decides between the columns: who is reading, and will this reader find the words expected, or will they surprise or puzzle them?

Each convention sits at a particular point on the register scale, and some carry more respect than their twins abroad.

Several of these forms are also used elsewhere. Yours faithfully is shared with British letter formats, and office English in parts of South and South-East Asia and Africa shares Indian conventions. Varieties borrow and overlap; the reader decides which form is expected.

Picture a railway station with two ticket windows, one for local trains and one for international journeys. Both windows sell real tickets. A local ticket is not a forged international one; it is the right ticket for the journey it serves. Respected Sir/Madam and do the needful are local tickets - valid, expected, correct - for the district office. Dear Dr Walsh and please send it by Friday are tickets for the journey to Leeds.

This section builds on S31's scale: each Indian English convention sits at its own point on it. Practice S17 met Respected Sir and Yours faithfully as letter conventions; Craft S25 met email greetings such as Good morning, Ma'am. Here those forms are described as a standard variety, set beside the forms readers abroad expect, and chosen by reader. S33 turns to code-mixing - bilingual speakers moving between languages inside one sentence.

Here is the hard case: one request, two readers, and a writer who must not insult either. Farhan, an admissions officer at a college in Kochi, needs two signed documents by Friday. One is from the Deputy Director at the state education department. The other is from Professor Lindqvist at a partner university in Uppsala. For the department, Farhan writes: "Respected Sir/Madam, With reference to our letter dated 2 July, kindly forward the signed approval at the earliest, as the admission list closes on Friday. Thanking you, Yours faithfully." Every convention is expected. A plainer letter - "Dear Sir/Madam, Please send the approval" - is also standard, and would not be wrong, but this reader is used to the first set. For Uppsala, Farhan starts from the same draft and runs the Reader Test. Respected may be unfamiliar. At the earliest is clear but vague. Thanking you, a phrase with no main verb, may read as unfinished. So the letter becomes: "Dear Professor Lindqvist, Could you sign and return the approval by Friday, when our admission list closes? Thank you for your help. Kind regards." Neither letter is more correct. The department's letter would puzzle Uppsala a little; the Uppsala letter might sound abrupt to the department. The lesson is exact: a register convention is not good or bad in itself. It fits a reader who expects it, and the writer's job is to know which reader is reading.

Kindly was once common in British formal letters too, and many older British writers still use it: "Kindly reply by return." Indian English kept it in everyday office use while it faded from much British and American writing. What sounds distinctly Indian to some readers abroad is, in part, an older shared form that one variety held on to. A second surprise: doubt meaning question is not a mistake about the word. It is an older sense that Indian English kept. In many Indian classrooms, "Ma'am, I have a doubt" is the most natural way to ask for help, and teachers expect it.

This section describes Indian English conventions as standard in their settings and judges them by audience fit only. Claims about readers abroad are hedged - many, some, may - because readers vary. The history of kindly and doubt is given in general terms, not as a dated fact. No named board's letter format is described; school formats differ. Farhan, Professor Lindqvist and every name in the items are invented.

1. Treat Respected Sir/Madam, kindly, do the needful, Yours faithfully and Thanks and regards as standard Indian English.
2. Before writing, name the reader: a district office, your principal, a client or university abroad.
3. For an Indian official reader, use the conventions that reader expects.
4. For a reader abroad, use the forms that reader expects - Dear, please, a named action and deadline.
5. Keep one set through a whole letter; do not open in one and close in the other.
6. Describe a form by who reads it; never mock or correct a standard variety.

• Respected Sir/Madam, I wish to apply for a duplicate mark sheet.
• Kindly do the needful and issue the certificate by 10 June.
• In class, Tanvi said: Ma'am, I am having a doubt in the third sum.
• Dear Mr Hughes, Could you send the signed contract by Friday?
• Laura's email to the Pune office closed: Many thanks, Laura
• In Lagos, Chinedu's office letters open with Dear Sir and close with Yours faithfully.

• Mr Rao's email to the principal began: Good morning, Sir, and ended: Thanks and regards.
• The notice from the district office asked residents to kindly cooperate with the survey team.
• Farah's leave letter to the class teacher closed: Thanking you, Yours obediently, Farah Khan.
• Mr Clarke replied: Thanks for this - I'll look at it tomorrow.
• Grace wrote to a new supplier in Kolkata: Dear Mr Bose, I hope you are well.
• In Singapore, Mei's team writes Dear Sir/Madam to government offices and Hi Ravi to colleagues.

Code-mixing and Hinglish

Code-mixing is not random. Most mixed sentences follow one of two shapes.

In the Hindi-frame sentences, an English word (hang, cancel) takes a Hindi helper verb (ho gaya, ho gayi), just as English verbs often do in Hinglish: enjoy karo, adjust kar lo. Speakers do not mix at any point they like; they mix at places the two grammars allow.

The Reader Test still decides the fit: who is reading, and do they share both languages?

Like any register choice, code-mixing fits some settings and not others.

Some linguists use code-switching for a change between sentences and code-mixing for a mix inside one sentence; others use the two terms loosely. Either way, the skill is the same one.

Code-mixing is not only Indian. Bilingual speakers mix Spanish and English in the United States, Tagalog and English in the Philippines, and English with Malay, Chinese and Tamil in Singapore. Wherever two languages meet, people mix them.

Picture a cook with two spice boxes, one Indian and one Italian. At home, for family who love both, a pinch of garam masala in the pasta is exactly right. At a competition that asks for a classic Italian dish, the judges expect one box. The cook who mixes is not a worse cook; the cook who mixes on purpose, for the right table, is a skilled one.

This section builds on S32, where Indian English conventions were described by reader. Craft S28 met register online, where much code-mixing lives; Practice S14 met slang as the in-group layer of informal words. Here the mix of two languages is described as a register of its own, with patterns and settings. S34 turns to politeness across cultures - how respect is marked differently from one language to the next.

Here is the hard case: one speaker, one audience, one mixed word - and a judgement that depends on the room. Aditi is giving the vote of thanks at an inter-school festival in Jaipur. The audience is students, teachers and parents from twelve schools, almost all of whom speak Hindi and English. The draft reads: "We thank our chief guest, our principals and every volunteer who worked so hard. Aap sab ke bina yeh possible nahi tha." (Without all of you, this would not have been possible.) A reader applying a two-box rule says: a speech is formal, so the Hindi sentence must go. But run the Reader Test. Who is listening? People who share both languages. What do they need? Thanks that feel sincere. What is the relationship? A student speaking to a mixed audience of equals and seniors. The single Hindi sentence, at the end, is warm and clear to every listener. It fits. Now change one fact. The same festival has invited a guest from Seoul who speaks no Hindi. The sentence now leaves one honoured listener out of the thanks. Aditi keeps the warmth and adds an English line after it: "Without all of you, this would not have been possible." The lesson is exact: code-mixing in a speech is not wrong and not automatically right. It fits when the whole audience shares both languages and the mix is chosen for effect; when one listener does not, gloss it or give it in the shared language.

Many English words started as code-mixing. Shampoo, bungalow, pyjamas, thug and loot all came into English from Indian languages, most of them first dropped into English sentences by people who spoke both. A mixed word used often enough by enough people can end up as an ordinary English word. A second surprise: fluent bilingual speakers mix without planning it, yet their mixed sentences tend to follow the patterns in this section rather than breaking both grammars at once. Researchers who study bilingual speech have long pointed out that smooth mixing inside a sentence usually takes a good command of both languages, not a weak command of either.

Code-mixing is described here by audience fit only; no mixed line is called an error. Hindi words are glossed in plain English; glosses give the everyday meaning, not a full translation. The two-term distinction (code-switching, code-mixing) is hedged because linguists use it differently. The origins of shampoo, bungalow, pyjamas, thug and loot are well established; no other word history is claimed. All ads, speeches and names are invented.

1. Describe code-mixing as a normal skill of bilingual speakers, never as bad English.
2. Before mixing, ask whether every reader shares both languages.
3. Mix freely in chats, and on purpose in ads or speeches for audiences who share both languages.
4. Keep formal letters, reports and most exam answers in one language.
5. When a reader may not know a word, gloss it: yaar (friend), jaldi (quickly).
6. Notice the patterns: an English frame with a Hindi word, or a Hindi frame with an English word and a Hindi helper verb.
7. Judge a mixed line by its reader, never by stigma.

• Chalo, let's go - the bus is here.
• Yeh movie was too good yaar, you have to watch it.
• In a Chennai hostel, Karthik told a roommate: Machan, lend me your charger.
• Tom's message to a friend in Mumbai ended: Catch you later, yaar!
• In Los Angeles, a café sign read: Tacos, coffee y más.
• In Singapore, Wei Jie texted: Can meet at six or not, lah?

• Mera phone hang ho gaya, so I'll call from Papa's phone.
• The principal closed the assembly: That's all for today - jaldi class mein jao.
• Siddharth's leave letter read: I request leave for 12 and 13 March to attend my sister's wedding.
• A London radio host greeted listeners in Southall: Good morning and sat sri akal to everyone tuning in.
• Megan, learning Hindi, asked a colleague in Pune: Is the meeting tomorrow or parso?
• In Manila, a shop banner read: Sale na! Up to 50% off this weekend.

Politeness across cultures

Languages put politeness in different places.

English has one you and one imperative form, so it builds much of its politeness from added words: please, could, would, a reason. A speaker whose first language carries courtesy in the pronoun and verb may say a bare English imperative and mean it kindly. The Reader Test asks what this reader expects to hear.

Cultures also differ in how often courtesy words are said, and in how directly a request or a no is put.

None of these habits is fixed to a nation. Families, workplaces and generations differ inside every country. Treat the table as tendencies to check against the real reader, never as labels to pin on people.

Picture two currencies. A hundred-rupee note and a pound coin both pay for things, but a shop in Manchester will not take rupees and a stall in Bhopal will not take pounds. Politeness works the same way: aap, ji and a soft voice are full payment at home; please and could are the currency abroad. Nobody is paying too little. They are paying in a currency the shop does not use.

This section builds on S32 and S33, where Indian English conventions and code-mixing were described by reader. Discover S3 and S4 taught please, could and may; Craft S29 taught softening and directness, and ch11 S21 and S35 give the politeness ladder and face. Here the same choices are set across cultures. S35 turns to exam letters, notices and emails - formats where the paper, not a culture, sets the expectations.

Here is the hard case: two colleagues, both polite, each hurt by the other. Arjun leads a small project team in Hyderabad. The team has just started working with Lena, a designer at a partner firm in Amsterdam. In the first week, Lena emails: "The layout has three problems. The logo is too small, the colours clash, and the menu is hard to find. Please fix these by Thursday." Arjun's team feels stung. Where they work, feedback usually begins with what is good, and a problem is put softly: "The layout is coming along nicely. Perhaps we could look again at the logo size?" To them, Lena's email sounds harsh. A week later, Lena is puzzled too. Arjun wrote back: "Thank you for your valuable feedback. We will certainly try our best to look into these points." Lena reads it as a yes and expects the fixes on Thursday. Arjun meant: we will try, but Thursday may be difficult. Run the Reader Test on both sides. Lena was being polite by one system: clear, specific, respectful of Arjun's time. Arjun was being polite by another: warm, face-saving, careful not to refuse outright. Neither was rude. Each read the other by the wrong rules. The fix is not for one side to switch systems entirely. It is to write for the reader. Lena can add one warm line; Arjun can say the fact plainly: "We can fix the logo and colours by Thursday; the menu will take until Monday."

English once had a pronoun system much like Hindi's aap and tum. Thou was the familiar you, used to close friends, family and children; you was the respectful form, used to superiors and strangers. Over time, you spread to everyone and thou faded from everyday speech, which is one reason modern English leans so heavily on please, could and would to do the work a pronoun once did. A second surprise: in many Indian families, saying thank you to a parent or a sibling for a small thing can sound formal or even cold, as if the speaker were treating family like strangers. The warmth is in the relationship itself. In many British families, leaving out the thank you would be the thing that sounds cold.

Politeness habits are described here as tendencies, hedged with many and some, never as facts about every member of a culture. The Hindi forms (aap, tum, tu, baithiye, baitho, ji), French vous and tu, and Japanese -san are standard and well known; the history of thou and you is given in general terms. No study or survey is cited. Kavya, Mrs Taylor, Arjun, Lena and every name in the items are invented.

1. Before writing, ask where this reader's culture puts politeness: a word, a title, a verb or a tone.
2. For many British readers, add please and could to a request; for many Indian elders, a title and a warm tone.
3. Read a direct line as clear, not rude, and an indirect line as face-saving, not dishonest.
4. When a reader may take an indirect no as a yes, state the fact plainly and warmly.
5. Check the real reader; never pin a national label on a person.
6. Do not over-correct: one please and one could is usually enough.

• Aap baithiye, Sharma-ji, chai aa rahi hai.
• Rohan greeted a neighbour at the gate: Namaste, Uncle, how is your knee now?
• At home, Nisha called out: Ma, give me some water.
• At a cafe in Leeds, Sam said: Could I have a coffee, please?
• Mrs Taylor replied to the offer of help: Oh, that's very kind, but I'm fine, thank you.
• In Tokyo, Yuki began the email: Dear Sato-san, thank you for your quick reply.

• Kabir wrote to a grandparent: Dadaji, aap kab aa rahe hain? We are all waiting.
• Arjun's reply to the partner firm said: We will certainly try our best to look into these points.
• Meera's revision said: We can fix the logo by Thursday; the menu will take until Monday.
• Ben's manager in Bristol wrote: That might be a little tricky this week.
• Chloe thanked the bus driver in Glasgow: Cheers, thanks very much.
• In Amsterdam, Lena's email said: The layout has three problems. Please fix these by Thursday.

Exam letters, notices and emails

Each exam form has its parts. Formats differ between papers and schools, so the one your paper or teacher states always wins; this is a common shape.

The Reader Test works with the format already set: the task names who is reading and what they need; your job is the relationship and the words.

Most marks lost on these tasks come from a few repeated register slips.

Where the paper states a close - Yours faithfully after Dear Sir/Madam in a British format, Yours sincerely after a named reader - follow it. Where it states nothing, any standard close that fits the reader is acceptable, and several may be.

Picture a railway timetable board. Every station's board has the same slots: train number, name, time, platform. A traveller glances once and finds what they need, because the slots never move. An exam notice or letter is that board. The format fixes the slots; your job is to put the right fact in each slot in words that suit the traveller reading it. A board with a joke in the platform slot helps nobody.

This section builds on S34 and the rest of Master: register as a scale, Indian English conventions and politeness by reader. Practice S16 to S18 taught informal letters, formal openings and closes, apologies and complaints; Craft S21 taught neutral tone for notices; Craft S25 taught emails. Here those skills meet the exam forms and their stated formats. S36 turns to irony, sarcasm and understatement - the gap between what the words say and what they mean.

Here is the hard case: a letter to the editor that has the right format, the right facts, and still loses its register halfway. Ishita is answering this task: "Write a letter to the editor of a city newspaper about the poor state of the public park in Sector 9, suggesting what the authorities should do." The draft opens well: sender's address, date, the editor's address, "Subject: Poor condition of the Sector 9 park", "Sir/Madam,". The first paragraph reads: "Through the columns of your newspaper, I wish to draw the attention of the authorities to the condition of the Sector 9 park, where the swings have been broken for three months and the lights do not work after dark." Then the second paragraph: "Honestly, the park is a total dump now. Nobody even bothers, and the authorities are clearly sleeping on the job." Run the Reader Test. Who is reading? An editor, and through the paper, the public and the authorities. What do they need? Facts they can check and a clear request. The second paragraph drops to the casual end (total dump, sleeping on the job) and replaces facts with an insult. An editor might not print it; an examiner would mark the expression down. The fix keeps the anger and moves it back up the scale: "Residents have raised the matter twice with the ward office, without result. I request the authorities to repair the swings and restore the lights before the summer holidays." The letter is still firm. It is now firm in one register, with the facts that make firmness count.

A notice is often harder to write well than a letter, even though it is shorter. A letter can take a paragraph to warm up; a notice of fifty words must fit the heading, date, what, when, where and contact, and still sound formal. Every word that does not carry a fact costs space a fact needed. A second surprise: the letter to the editor is not really addressed to the editor. The salutation names the editor, but the true readers are the newspaper's public and the authorities who read it. That is why it states facts and a request, like a public argument, rather than chatting to the editor.

Exam formats are described generically. Boards, papers and schools differ in the order of parts, whether a notice is boxed, word limits and closes; no board's marking scheme is described or implied. Where this section keys a close, the item states the convention. Greenfield School, the Sector 9 park, Ishita and every name and place in the items are invented.

1. Read the task twice: name the reader, the purpose, the form and every fact it gives.
2. Follow the format your paper or teacher states, part by part.
3. Keep one register from the first line to the last; underline any word that slips.
4. In a notice, spend words on facts - what, when, where, whom to contact - not on padding.
5. Write a specific subject line that tells the reader the request in one line.
6. Where the paper states a close, use it; where it does not, any standard close that fits the reader will do.

• Subject: Request for a bus stop near Greenfield School
• NOTICE - Inter-House Quiz - All Class 11 students are informed that the quiz will be held on 5 August in the auditorium.
• Through the columns of your esteemed newspaper, I wish to draw the attention of the authorities to the broken streetlights in Sector 12.
• Dear Ms Walsh, I am writing to ask whether the library could order two more copies of the lab manual.
• Yours sincerely, Oliver Grant
• In Nairobi, Achieng's email subject line read: Leave request - 14 and 15 March

• For further details, contact Neha Joshi, Secretary, Eco Club.
• Kindly look into the matter and take the necessary action at the earliest.
• Rohit's first draft of the notice began: Hey guys, so there's this quiz thing on Friday!
• Dear Sir or Madam, I wish to complain about the late delivery of order 4471.
• Kind regards, Amelia Hart
• In Cape Town, Thabo's letter to the council ended: I look forward to your reply.

Irony, sarcasm and understatement: hearing the gap

Each line below says one thing and means another. The situation shows the real meaning.

The move is the same each time: read the words, read the situation, and notice where they disagree. The tone is in that gap. This is the Reader Test from the reader's side: who is speaking, to whom, and what can they both see?

Irony, sarcasm and understatement all open a gap. They differ in their aim.

Speech gives the listener help: a raised eyebrow, a flat voice, a laugh. Writing takes most of it away. 'Great, thanks' in a message can be real thanks or cold sarcasm, and the reader has only the words. That is why sarcasm is often misread in text messages, and why careful writers either add context or leave it out.

Chapter 26, Figures of Speech, treats irony, understatement and hyperbole as figures with names and effects. This section treats them only as tone: what the reader hears, and how.

Picture a film with the sound track and the pictures running side by side. Usually they agree: sad music over a sad scene. Now play cheerful music over a storm. You feel the gap at once - that is irony. Make the music mock one of the characters, and it is sarcasm. Turn the music down to a quiet hum while the house floods, and it is understatement. The reader always watches both tracks.

This section builds on Practice S15, where 'Oh, brilliant. Another power cut.' was named sarcastic, and on Craft S24, where a tone shift could be on purpose or by accident. Here the gap between words and situation becomes the thing you read for. S37 turns to revising a whole text whose tone has gone wrong - too stiff, too casual or mixed - and S39 reads the same kind of gap in two famous texts.

Here is the hard case: one line, two situations. Rohan's cricket team is playing a school final. Rohan comes in to bat and scores a century. As Rohan walks off, a teammate says, 'Nice work, Rohan.' The words mean exactly what they say. There is no gap: the situation shows a century, and the words praise it. Now change the situation. Rohan is fielding at slip and drops an easy catch - the third of the day. The same teammate says, in the same words, 'Nice work, Rohan.' Now there is a gap. The words praise; the situation shows a mistake. The line is sarcastic - it is aimed at Rohan and meant to sting. If the teammate grins and slaps Rohan on the back, the same line may be gentle teasing instead. The words have not changed at all; only the situation and the signals around it have. This is why a tone question can never be answered from the words alone. A careful reader always asks: what is happening, who is speaking to whom, and is there a reply or a gesture that shows how the line was meant? And a careful writer remembers that a message on a phone carries none of that. 'Nice work' sent as a text after a dropped catch may be read as real praise, or as a cruel joke by someone who was not there to see the grin.

The word sarcasm comes from Greek, through Latin: the Greek verb sarkazein meant to tear flesh, and later to speak bitterly. The word itself warns that sarcasm is meant to wound. A second surprise: one of the most famous understatements was said in a real emergency. In April 1970, after an oxygen tank exploded on the Apollo 13 spacecraft, the crew radioed, 'Houston, we've had a problem.' The words are calm and small; the situation was life-threatening. Understatement here was not a joke - it kept a clear head when panic would have helped nobody.

This section uses irony to mean verbal irony - words that say the opposite of what the situation shows. Situational irony and dramatic irony are wider uses of the word, met in literature study and in Chapter 26. The line from Apollo 13 is given as it is widely reported from the 1970 mission. All people in the examples and items are invented. Tone items here give enough context for one reading; in real life a line can be ambiguous, which is the point about text messages.

1. When you read a line, check the situation before you trust the words.
2. Look for a gap: praise for a mistake, calm words for a crisis, delight at bad news.
3. Ask who the line is aimed at: nobody (gentle irony), a person (sarcasm), or the situation (understatement).
4. Look for signals that settle it: a reply, a grin, a cold voice, a follow-up line.
5. In a text message, add context or leave sarcasm out - the reader cannot hear your voice.
6. For a sincere apology, a complaint or an instruction, say it plainly; that reader must not have to guess.

• It poured all through the school picnic, and Ananya laughed, 'Lovely weather for a picnic.'
• When Vikram dropped a third catch, a teammate snapped, 'Oh, brilliant. Keep it up.'
• With the library's ground floor under water, Mrs Kulkarni told the staff, 'We have a bit of a problem.'
• Oliver finished the marathon in a hailstorm and called it 'not bad, all things considered'.
• Grace texted the shop 'Great, thanks' after the order was cancelled, and the manager replied, 'You're welcome!'
• In Nairobi, Wanjiru's complaint to the landlord said: 'The water has been off for three days. Please repair it by Friday.'

• On a 44-degree afternoon in Nagpur, Rahul's grandmother fanned herself and said, 'It's a little warm today.'
• When Farhan arrived an hour late, Pooja said coldly, 'Thanks for being so punctual.'
• In the class group, Diya wrote 'Great, another surprise test' and then 'just kidding, good luck everyone'.
• After a week of storms, Tom's weather diary said only: 'A bit damp.'
• Jake's note to the neighbour said: 'I am sorry the ball broke your window. I will pay for the new glass.'
• In Kyoto, Kenji smiled at a friend who had got lost three times and said, 'You certainly know the scenic routes.'

Revising for tone: too stiff, too casual, mixed

Three tone faults, each judged against a named reader.

The first step is always the Reader Test: who is reading, what do they need, and how close are you? Only then look at the words.

A method for any text, in five steps.

Two cautions. Do not rewrite a whole text in your own voice when a word or a line is the fault; the writer's facts and warmth should survive. And do not treat both-standard choices as faults: a contraction in a friendly email to a teacher, 'get' in a letter or 'Could I' for 'May I' needs no change unless the reader or a stated format asks for one.

Picture a mixing desk with one slider for register, from 'with close friends' at the bottom to 'legal notice' at the top. A good text sets the slider once, for its reader, and leaves it there. Too stiff is the slider pushed too high for the reader; too casual is too low. A mixed text is the slider jumping up and down in the middle of the song - and the listener notices every jump.

This section brings together Practice S19 (keeping one register), Craft S24 (tone shifts on purpose or by accident) and Craft S30 (editing for a real reader). S31's scale gives the target: one point on the scale for each reader. S36 showed that sarcasm can slip into a text where it does not fit. S38 turns to exam items on tone and register - which choices a careful item can key, and which it must leave alone.

Here is the hard case: a mixed text whose fix is to become less formal. Kavya lost a water bottle at school and posted this in the class WhatsApp group: 'Dear esteemed classmates, it is hereby notified that my blue water bottle has gone missing from Room 9. pls check ur bags guys, it was a birthday gift!!' The message is mixed. It opens like an official notice and ends like a chat. A quick editor, spotting 'pls' and 'ur', might make the whole thing formal: 'Kindly examine your bags and return the item at the earliest.' That fixes the mix - and misses the reader. Run the Reader Test. Who is reading? Classmates. What do they need? To know what is lost, where, and what to do. How close is the relationship? Equal and friendly. The target is friendly and clear - the point on the scale where most class group messages sit. Measured against that target, the stiff opening is the fault, as much as the chat abbreviations. 'Dear esteemed classmates' and 'it is hereby notified' are too stiff for this group; they can even read as sarcastic. The fix moves both halves toward the middle: 'Hi everyone, I've lost my blue water bottle - I think in Room 9. Could you check your bags? It was a birthday gift. Thanks!' The facts all survive: blue, Room 9, the request, why it matters. 'I've' stays, because a contraction fits this group. The fix is not more formal and not more casual; it is the one register this reader needs.

The most formal line in a message can be the least polite. 'I am in receipt of your message and shall endeavour to attend your birthday celebration' is correct and very formal, but to a close friend it sounds cold, even offended. Politeness is judged by the relationship, not by the length of the words (Practice S11). A second surprise: fixing tone usually makes a text shorter. Stiff lines shrink when everyday words replace formal ones, and casual lines often need only a greeting and a clear request. The revised versions in this section are, on average, no longer than the drafts.

Where a line sits on the scale depends on the reader and the setting; a family whose members write formally to each other, or an office whose house style is very casual, would set the target differently. 'Respected Ma'am' and 'I wish to inform you' are standard in Indian letters to teachers and are not treated as too stiff for that reader. Contractions, 'get' and 'Could I' are both-standard and are never keyed as faults on their own. All people and messages are invented.

1. Name the reader and the relationship before you change a word.
2. Choose one target point on the scale for this reader.
3. Mark each line that sits above or below the target: too stiff, too casual or out of step.
4. Make the smallest change that fixes each marked line; keep every fact.
5. Fix a mixed text toward the reader's register, which may mean warming a stiff line, not stiffening a warm one.
6. Reread as the reader: would anything surprise, puzzle or upset them?

• Dear Aman, I hereby extend my heartfelt gratitude for your esteemed assistance with the relocation.
• Priya's first draft to the bank read: 'hey, my card's not working lol, sort it pls.'
• Respected Ma'am, I will be absent on Friday for my cousin's wedding, which is gonna be epic.
• Lucy rewrote 'I require your attendance at my party' as 'Can you come to my party on Saturday?'
• Dear Mr Patterson, thank you for the reference; it helped a great deal with my application.
• In Lagos, Chidi's revised email to the landlord kept one register: 'The kitchen tap is leaking. Could you send a plumber this week?'

• Kavya's first post in the class group began: 'Dear esteemed classmates, it is hereby notified that my bottle is missing.'
• Kavya's revision: 'Hi everyone, I've lost my blue water bottle in Room 9. Could you check your bags? Thanks!'
• Mahesh's complaint to the hotel said: 'The air conditioner in Room 214 did not work, which was a total nightmare lol.'
• Ella changed 'Cheers for the chat, it was super fun!' to 'Thank you for your time today; I enjoyed our conversation.'
• Ben's note to an aunt kept 'I can't wait to see you!' and cut only 'I shall be obliged if you could'.
• In Buenos Aires, Lucas revised a message to the building manager from 'fix the lift, it's so annoying' to 'Could the lift be repaired this week?'

Tone and register under exam conditions

Four kinds of item, and what each stem must name.

Under time, run the Reader Test as three quick questions: who reads this? what does the stem say decides it? which choice fits? If the stem names a reader, choose by fit. If it names a format, follow the format.

These pairs are both standard for most readers. A careful item never sets one as the key and the other as a distractor unless the stem names a condition that separates them.

Tone items have a rule of their own: one reading. A fair passage gives enough words and context that only one tone word fits, and the distractors are tones the words do not support. 'Angry' and 'cross' in one set is a flaw - both would be right. So is naming the tone from the topic: a passage about an exam can be cheerful.

Picture the stem as a lock and the choices as four keys. A well-made lock has one shape, so only one key turns it. A badly made lock is loose - two keys turn it, and the paper still marks one of them wrong. Your job in the hall is to feel for the shape of the lock first: the reader, the situation, the stated format. Only then try the keys.

This section gathers the both-standard rulings met across the chapter: contractions (Practice S13), formal and everyday words (Practice S12), the openings and closings of formal letters (Practice S17), email closes (Craft S25) and naming the tone (Practice S15). S35 set out the formats of exam letters, notices and emails; this section is about objective items on tone and register. S39 turns from exam items to close reading tone in two famous texts, and Chapter 23 takes error spotting as a test genre in full.

Here is the hard case: an item where two choices seem to fit. 'Which close suits a formal letter that begins "Dear Sir"?' A) Yours faithfully B) Yours sincerely C) Yours lovingly D) Cheers C and D fall at once: neither fits a formal letter to a stranger. But A and B both appear in real formal letters. In the British convention, and in many Indian school formats, a letter that opens 'Dear Sir' or 'Dear Madam' closes 'Yours faithfully', and one that opens with a name closes 'Yours sincerely'. In American practice, 'Sincerely' closes almost every formal letter. So B is not wrong English; it is a different convention. A fair version of the item names the convention: 'In the British format, a letter that begins "Dear Sir" closes with...' Now A is the key and B is keyed wrong for a stated reason. What do you do if the paper gives the unfair version? First, re-read the stem - the condition is often there in a phrase you skimmed ('as per the format given above'). If it is there, follow it. If it is truly absent, choose the answer your course's stated format supports - usually A in Indian school formats - and know that B is a convention, not an error. In a written answer or a review, say so in one line: 'Yours sincerely is standard after a name; after Dear Sir, the British format uses Yours faithfully.' The skill is not guessing the setter's mind. It is knowing exactly which condition separates the pair.

An item that asks 'Which is incorrect?' of a sentence whose only feature is a contraction or an everyday word is a badly built register item. 'I don't agree' and 'We got the results' are standard English; a register item can only ask whether they fit a named reader or a stated format. A second surprise: in tone items, the hardest distractor is often the topic. A passage about a funeral may be warm and grateful - the speaker thanks everyone who came - and the careless answer 'sad' names the subject, not the tone the words carry.

Exam formats are described generically here; this section does not describe any named board's marking scheme or paper. Letter conventions differ: 'Yours faithfully' after 'Dear Sir' is the British convention and is taught in many Indian school formats; American practice commonly uses 'Sincerely'. Items in this section state the convention wherever they key one close. All people and passages are invented.

1. Read the stem before the choices; underline the reader, the situation or the format.
2. Cross out choices that do not fit the named reader - slang to an official, an over-formal line to a friend.
3. If two choices remain, look for the condition that separates them; follow a stated format.
4. Never reject a both-standard choice with an invented rule: contractions, get, Can I, several greetings and closes.
5. In a tone item, choose the tone the words carry, not the topic, and never a near-synonym you cannot defend.
6. If a review asks why, give one line naming the condition or the fit.

• The task asked Anjali to write to the Municipal Commissioner, Pune, about stray cattle on the road.
• Harsh closed the letter with Yours faithfully because the paper's format gave Dear Sir ... Yours faithfully.
• In the tone item, Sneha chose 'grateful' because the passage said the whole village thanked the volunteers.
• The item offered both 'Could I borrow your notes?' and 'May I borrow your notes?' for a request to Mr Davies.
• Ellie's answer named the tone of 'At last, the results are out - and we have all passed!' as cheerful.
• In Cape Town, Thandi ended the exam email with Kind regards, and the model answer also accepted Regards and Best wishes.

• The notice task said the science exhibition 'will be held on 12 March in the main hall', and Arnav kept every word plain.
• Ritika's answer changed 'It will be awesome' in the notice to 'All students are welcome'.
• Under the stated format, Imran wrote 'I do not agree' in the letter, since the task asked for full forms.
• Mr Hughes told the class that 'We got the results' and 'We received the results' both fit a report.
• Chloe crossed out 'I hereby most humbly beseech you' as the answer for a letter to the bank.
• In Manila, Paolo's teacher accepted 'Thanks,' and 'Regards,' to close an email to a new teacher, as the task named no house style.

Close reading tone

Close reading tone in five steps, shown on Swift's A Modest Proposal.

The speaker is not Swift. Swift invents a speaker - a persona - who believes every word, so that readers hear the horror the speaker cannot. This is the Reader Test from the writer's side: Swift chose a register that his readers would recognise as reasonable, and let them find the gap.

Now a gap that makes readers laugh. In Pride and Prejudice (1813, Volume I, Chapter 19), Mr Collins proposes marriage to Elizabeth Bennet.

Set the two texts side by side and the difference is in whose tone is whose.

Elizabeth's reply shows the contrast: 'I am perfectly serious in my refusal.' It is plain and direct. Mr Collins still misreads it - he cannot hear a tone he does not expect, which is S36's lesson inside a novel.

Picture a waiter in a perfect uniform, bowing politely, carrying a silver tray with a covered dish. The uniform, the bow and the tray are the register: correct, calm, ceremonious. Lift the lid and look at what is served - that is the situation. In Swift, the dish is horrifying; in Austen, it is a very ordinary offer made with far too much ceremony. Close reading is lifting the lid and describing the gap between the tray and the dish.

This section draws on S31's scale (where does the register sit?), S36's gap between words and situation, S37's slips and shifts, and Craft S23's euphemism - Swift's businesslike words soften a horror. Practice S15 named tones from evidence; here the evidence is a quoted phrase in a literary text. S40, the chapter capstone, asks you to fit and defend a text of your own.

Here is the hard case: whose tone is it? Mr Collins tells Elizabeth: 'And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection.' Ask the question at two levels. First, the speaker. Mr Collins means it. He is not joking and not being sarcastic; he believes this is how a proper gentleman declares love. His tone, as he intends it, is ardent and correct. Second, the author. Austen places this sentence at the end of a long speech in which Mr Collins has listed his reasons - a clergyman should set an example, marriage will add to his happiness, and his patroness advised it - and has explained that marrying one of the Bennet daughters will ease his conscience about inheriting their father's estate. Only after all that does 'the violence of my affection' appear, announced like an item on an agenda. The phrase claims passion; everything around it shows none. So the line has two tones at once. The speaker's is earnest. The author's is ironic: she lets the reader hear the gap Mr Collins cannot. That is why the scene is comic rather than cruel. Nobody in the room is being sarcastic; the irony belongs to the narration and to the reader. In an answer, say both: 'Collins sincerely means "the violence of my affection", but Austen places it after a list of practical reasons, so the reader hears the gap between his claimed passion and his real motives.'

Swift's title is part of the joke. The proposal is called 'modest', and the speaker calls it humble and hopes it will not be 'liable to the least objection'. The humblest words in the text are wrapped round its most extreme idea. A second surprise: Mr Collins's longest sentences come when he talks about his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh; his feelings for Elizabeth get one phrase near the end. A reader can find the tone simply by noticing where the words are spent.

Quotations are exact from the Project Gutenberg texts: A Modest Proposal, eBook #1080 (1729; that copy keeps the old spelling 'publick'), and Pride and Prejudice, eBook #1342, where the proposal falls in the chapter numbered XIX - Volume I, Chapter 19 of the 1813 first edition. Straight quotation marks replace that copy's curly ones, and one quotation shortens a narrative interruption with '...'. The content of Swift's proposal is described only as far as tone requires. Students named in the examples are invented.

1. Name the register in a few exact words: calm, formal, humble, ceremonious.
2. Name the situation plainly, in one sentence.
3. State the gap between them, and say what it does: satire, comedy, character.
4. Separate the speaker's tone from the author's; ask who opens the gap.
5. Quote three to ten exact words, set inside your own sentence.
6. Do not take the tone from the topic, from old spelling or from the manners of another century.

• Ishaan underlined Swift's 'I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts' and wrote in the margin: calm, polite, reasonable.
• Swift's speaker says that whoever finds 'a fair, cheap and easy method' of making poor children useful deserves a statue.
• Meenakshi noted that Mr Collins begins 'My reasons for marrying are, first...', as if reading a report to a committee.
• Hannah read 'the violence of my affection' aloud, and the class laughed, because the speech before it is all reasons and rules.
• Elizabeth's reply is plain: 'I am perfectly serious in my refusal.'
• In Nairobi, Amani's essay argued that Mr Collins hears the refusal as what is 'usual with young ladies' - a listener deaf to tone.

• Tanvi pointed out that Swift's title calls the proposal 'modest', the humblest word wrapped round the most extreme idea.
• Kunal's answer said, 'Collins sincerely means "the violence of my affection"; Austen lets the reader hear the gap.'
• Rhea quoted Mr Collins: 'I am not now to learn ... that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept.'
• George's first draft called Swift's tone 'sad'; the revised draft called it 'savagely satirical under a calm register'.
• Mr Collins speaks of 'the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness' in the middle of a proposal.
• In Seoul, Min-jun compared Swift's calm voice with a modern report that calls job losses 'efficiency savings'.

Independent performance

Here are the lines of Aditya's email to Professor Carter, each put through the Reader Test and the brief.

Every decision is the Reader Test and one question more: does this line misfit the reader, put the meaning at risk, fit the reader, or sit among choices that are all standard?

The four kinds of decision, across both texts.

The group message shows the reverse problem. Aditya's draft - 'Dear esteemed members, it is hereby notified that practice shall commence at 4 p.m. in Room 12. Obviously everyone will be on time, as always. Yours faithfully, Aditya' - is too stiff for classmates, carries a sarcastic jab, and closes like a letter to an editor. The fitted version moves the whole message toward the group, not toward more formality: 'Chalo team, practice at 4 in Room 12 - bring your notes! See you there, Aditya.' Chalo (Hindi, 'come on' or 'let's go') fits a bilingual group; every fact survives.

Picture two envelopes on a desk, one addressed to Professor Carter in Edinburgh, one to the society group. Beside them sits a single sheet of facts: Saturday, 21 November, 10 a.m., the auditorium, practice at 4 in Room 12. The facts go into both envelopes unchanged. What changes is the voice each envelope carries - a warm formal voice for one, a friendly bilingual voice for the other. Anything that would make either reader frown - a stiff phrase, a chatty one, a hidden jab - stays on the desk.

This is the chapter's capstone. It draws on Discover S6 (the Reader Test), Practice S16-S19 (letters, formal openings and closes, keeping one register), Craft S25 and S28-S30 (emails, register online, softening, editing for a real reader), and Master S31-S38 (the scale, Indian English, code-mixing, politeness across cultures, exam formats, irony and sarcasm, revising for tone, both-standard pairs). The two fitted texts hand on to Chapter 23, Error Spotting.

Here is the hard case, and it sits in one line of the email: Respected Professor Carter, kindly do the needful regarding the judging at the earliest. There are four phrases a quick editor might touch: Respected, kindly, do the needful and at the earliest. Each needs its own decision, and each has a different defence. 'Respected' is a standard Indian opening for a senior reader. It is not an error. But the brief names a reader from Britain, where letters open with 'Dear', and 'Respected' may read as unusual. Change it - for fit, not for correctness: 'Dear Professor Carter,'. 'Kindly' is polite and standard in British English too, if a little formal. It could stay. But the sentence around it is changing, and 'Could you' carries the politeness just as well. Either would do - a both-standard choice, so it is not a fault either way. 'Do the needful' is standard Indian office English and clear to readers who know the needful. Professor Carter does not know it: is it to judge, to reply, to send a biography? Change - because the meaning is at risk: 'Could you let us know by Tuesday, 10 November, whether you can be our chief judge?' 'At the earliest' is also standard Indian English. Here it is vague for the same reason - the reader cannot tell how soon. The named date replaces it. The finished line: 'Dear Professor Carter, ... Could you let us know by Tuesday, 10 November, whether you can be our chief judge?' Four phrases, one changed for fit, two changed for meaning, one left as a free choice - and not one of them called wrong. A good note to Aditya is short: 'Dear for a British reader; the needful named; the date replaces at the earliest; kindly or could you, your choice.'

The most important decision in the email is a sentence Aditya is proudest of. 'Last year's final was, of course, perfectly organised' is a joke the whole society enjoys - last year's final started an hour late. Inside the society it is gentle irony. To Professor Carter, who was not there, it is either baffling or an unkind jab at people the professor has never met. The same words, two readers, two tones: S36's lesson, deciding a real edit. A second surprise: after every change, both texts are shorter than the drafts, and both are warmer. Fit and length often move together; fog and slips take space.

Aditya Rao, Professor Carter, Mrs Deshpande, the society and the debate are invented; Pune and Edinburgh are real cities named as settings, and no claim is made about any real institution. Saturday, 21 November 2026 and Tuesday, 10 November 2026 are the real weekdays of those dates. 'Respected', 'kindly', 'do the needful' and 'at the earliest' are standard Indian English; they are changed here only because the brief names a reader from Britain, and would be kept for an Indian reader. Chalo is glossed as Hindi for 'come on' or 'let's go'.

1. Read the brief, then both drafts, before changing anything.
2. Name each reader and place them on the scale.
3. Keep every fact; change only the voice.
4. Sort each decision: misfit, meaning at risk, fits the reader, or both standard.
5. Change Indian English conventions only for audience fit, and say so; never call them errors.
6. Write a one-line defence for every change and every keep, naming the reader or a tool.

• Dear Professor Carter, the Debating Society would be honoured if you could judge the final on Saturday, 21 November.
• Chalo team, practice at 4 in Room 12 - bring your notes!
• Aditya replaced 'Kindly do the needful' with a question naming the action and the date.
• Professor Carter replied, 'Thank you for the kind invitation - I'd be delighted to come.'
• Mr Bennett, the English teacher, cut 'Last year's final was, of course, perfectly organised' from the email.
• Yuki, an exchange student from Osaka, suggested closing the email with 'Warm regards' rather than 'Yours faithfully'.

• Aditya's first group draft began, 'Dear esteemed members, it is hereby notified that practice shall commence at 4 p.m.'
• The draft email said, 'Your esteemed presence is hereby solicited as chief judge.'
• Mrs Deshpande left 'I'm' in the group message: 'I'm booking Room 12 for the whole afternoon.'
• The draft email's line 'It's gonna be a blast!' became 'The students are looking forward to it very much.'
• Mr Bennett noted that 'Could you let us know' and 'Would you let us know' both fit the email.
• Kwame, an exchange student from Accra, read the group message and asked what chalo meant; the society added a gloss for guests.