What’s that in plain English? B – Exercise 1A – answers

1 Spelling, pronunciation and intonation.
2 Linking the words already heard with easier words which could perhaps replace them.
3 No, the English that results should not be less accurate or less detailed.or No, it is an attempt to make communication clear and understandable.
Vocabulary
If sth is ‘dumbed down‘ it is made less challenging intellectually. This is usually used in a pejorative sense, when people suggest that information is over-simplified at the expense of valuable and complex content or ideas.
4 1) Jargon and 2) many old-fashioned terms.
5 It was ambiguous.
6 Offset. If something is offset it is set / balanced against its opposite. For instance, if you spend £10 on tea for an office party and you have to pay £12 to get into the office tea party, your expenses of £10 would be offset against your entrance fee, so you would only have to pay £2. However, it could work the other way – you could have to pay more if others had spent a lot of money, so you could owe money rather be owed it.This was the problem on the online tax return, because the ‘offset‘ section could only take + amounts of amounts, but not – amounts, so the ‘offsetting‘ could only work one way, not both.
7 If you get my drift.

Now back for exercise 1B, writing down the 20 spellings!