Quotes from Han Fook Kwang

The written English we want is clean, clear prose. I choose my words carefully – not elegant, not stylish, just clean, clear prose. It means simplifying, polishing and tightening.

Over 100 years ago, this was a mud-flat, swamp. Today, this is a modern city. Ten years from now, this will be a metropolis. Never fear!

every word, every sentence, has three possible meanings: what the speaker intends it to mean, what the hearer understands it to mean, and what it is commonly understood to mean.

That is why we got booted out. If they could have just squeezed us like an orange and squeezed the juice out, I think the juice would have been squeezed out of us, and all the goodness would have been sucked away. But it was a bit harder, wasn't it? It was more like the durian. You try and squeeze it, your hand gets hurt. And so they say, "Right, throw out the durian." But inside the durian is a very useful ingredient, high protein … And we will progress.

Write so simply that any other officer who knows nothing of the subject can still understand you. To do this, avoid confusion and give words their ordinary meanings.