Abstract
The word ‘plain’ in its original sense just meant ‘flat, smooth’. In the thirteenth century, it also gained the meaning ‘evident’. And from the fourteenth century on, ‘plain’ has been used in the way we understand it in the term ‘plain language’: to refer to something simple, clear, and obvious without superfluous ornamentation:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plain and http://www.etymonline.com/index.
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Time to make it shorter: Plain English in our context
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Editoral Board
Editor-in-Chief:
- Phillip Leventhal (Evidera, Lyon, France)
Co-Editor:
Managing Editor
- Victoria White (Tampa, Florida, USA) Email: MEW@emwa.org
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Associate Editors:
- Anuradha Alahari (PAREXEL International, Paris, France)
- Raquel Billiones (Clinipace, Zurich, Switzerland)
- Barbara Grossman (Hawkeye Medical Limited, Berkshire, UK)
- Joselita T Salita (Freelance, Bremen, Germany)
- Nathan Susnik (Hanover Medical School, Hanover, Germany)
- Clare (Chi-Chih) Chang
- Jonathan Pitt
Section Editors:
- Alison McIntosh
- Wendy Kingdom (Wendy Kingdom Ltd., Dulverton, UK)
- Lisa Chamberlain-James (Trilogy Writing and Consulting Ltd., Cambridge, UK)
- Maria Koltowska-Haggstrom (Proper Medical Writing Warsaw, Poland)
- Laura Collada Ali (Teksema, Cogne, Italy)
- Hervé Maisonneuve (Freelance, Lyon, France)
- Claire Gudex (University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark)
- Sam Hamilton (Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK)
- Anu Alahari
- Evguenia Alechine
- Kelly Goodwin Burri (Stryker GmbH, Selzach, Switzerland)
- Stephen Gilliver
- Amy Whereat
- Jennifer Clemens
- Karim Montasser
- Somsuvro Basu
Ad-hoc Editors:
- Amy Whereat (SpeaktheSpeech Consulting, Asnieres sur Seine, France)
Editor Emeritus:
- Elise Langdon-Neuner (Medical University of Vienna, Austria)