So a handful of editors – voluntarily; not everyone was keen – started preparing for the Cambridge exams (Advanced or Proficiency), and amid some grumbling – “Ugh, really? Is this necessary?” – English became the spoken language at our Monday morning meetings.
Translator, journalist and native speaker Alison Edwards joined us every week to steer us in the right direction with her gentle wit. She also compiled the Observant English Style Guide 2007, a bright orange folder crammed with pages of tips and explanations tailored specifically to journalists. Editorial, headline, broadsheet, centrefold, full stop, semi-colon, double quotation marks, a guide to punctuation – the first few pages cover them all.
How often did we consult the folder? Not very often, judging by its pristine pages. It wasn’t long before we reverted to meeting in Dutch and concluded that writing high-quality articles in a language other than your mother tongue is a skill few journalists possess. We called in professional translators and breathed a collective sigh of relief.