Thameslink: "formed of" Vs "which has"

[JohnRegular]

Making announcements using language that is clearer to more people is surely a good thing.
If you think the railway - a public service where providing clear information is very important - should be using terminology that is harder for everyday people to understand, I have to disagree.
'Alight' and 'terminates' are borderline - they can be more concise but 'leave (the train)' and '(the train) finishes its journey' are probably clearer to the average person.
The example given in the original post is both shorter, and clearer for most people. Thumbs up!

 

[bramling]

Making announcements using language that is clearer to more people is surely a good thing.
If you think the railway - a public service where providing clear information is very important - should be using terminology that is harder for everyday people to understand, I have to disagree.
'Alight' and 'terminates' are borderline - they can be more concise but 'leave (the train)' and '(the train) finishes its journey' are probably clearer to the average person.
The example given in the original post is both shorter, and clearer for most people. Thumbs up!

Why can’t people learn the words? It really isn’t difficult.

You have somewhat made a case for using these more sophisticated words, namely that they exist because they are more concise than the alternatives you propose. For those majority of people who actually bother paying attention to their surroundings, this *is* clearer.

I first heard the term “terminates at” when I was less than 10, and it wasn’t hard to grasp.

 

[Horizon22]

Why can’t people learn the words? It really isn’t difficult.

You have somewhat made a case for using these more sophisticated words, namely that they exist because they are more concise than the alternatives you propose. For those majority of people who actually bother paying attention to their surroundings, this *is* clearer.

I first heard the term “terminates at” when I was less than 10, and it wasn’t hard to grasp.

As I mentioned upthread, there is a whole campaign to use "Plain English" especially when it comes to public services and for announcements to be as clear as possible - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English_Campaign

I still hear "all change" and "terminates" a lot though.

 

[bramling]

As I mentioned upthread, there is a whole campaign to use "Plain English" especially when it comes to public services and for announcements to be as clear as possible - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English_Campaign

I still hear "all change" and "terminates" a lot though.

The whole thing is so much more nuanced than that.

As far as I’m concerned, jargon is using internal railway language. So you wouldn’t announce to someone that a train has an encoder fault. But advising that there’s a “defect” with the train *is* plain language.

Using more sophisticated language might actually educate a few people, which must surely be a good thing.

I will certainly always use words like “defect” when speaking to people, and if they can’t work out what it means then as far as I’m concerned perhaps it’s better if they didn’t progress beyond their front door in the morning.

 

[Horizon22]

The whole thing is so much more nuanced than that.

As far as I’m concerned, jargon is using internal railway language. So you wouldn’t announce to someone that a train has an encoder fault. But advising that there’s a “defect” with the train *is* plain language.

Using more sophisticated language might actually educate a few people, which must surely be a good thing.

I will certainly always use words like “defect” when speaking to people, and if they can’t work out what it means then as far as I’m concerned perhaps it’s better if they didn’t progress beyond their front door in the morning.

Using your example that would normally be referred to as a "train fault"/ "fault on a train" externally.

 

[sh24]

This train terminates here is shorter and crisper than this train finishes its journey here . Simplification isn't always a good idea.

Anyone who has used a Government website in their house style will be familiar with the challenge of simplification. Even the simplest task means clicking through many pages with a single question on. Well intentioned but annoying and inefficient.

 

[speedy1]

“Get off” sounds awful. If that’s an evolution of language then no thanks.

I’d really prefer rail announcements not to resemble something that sounds like high-school slang for what someone was up to the previous night.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Oct 2026 ==



I couldn’t give a toss about non-native speakers. If I went to Spain I would either happily suck it up, or if it caused me that much of a problem I’d learn the language.

Something like “alight” is only less common if there’s a conscious effort to stop using it. Most people know what the word board means, alight is only the inverse of that. We aren’t talking about some specialist technical term.

Hear hear. Agree with all of that.

(Especially as someone who has spent a decent amount of time in Spain and never once thought that anything about the Spanish language ought to be changed for me!)

 

[JohnRegular]

Why can’t people learn the words? It really isn’t difficult.

You have somewhat made a case for using these more sophisticated words, namely that they exist because they are more concise than the alternatives you propose. For those majority of people who actually bother paying attention to their surroundings, this *is* clearer.

I first heard the term “terminates at” when I was less than 10, and it wasn’t hard to grasp.

You're clearly a smart person who hasn't had any difficultly learning these terms, and also has been exposed to them from a young age. I understand your point that jargon can keep things more concise (that is often the reason these words exist); a lot of people don't know what 'points' are but if a station announcement had to say "this train has been delayed due to a fault with the movable pieces of track that allow trains to move between lines" that would get tedious sharpish!

But - not everyone using the railway is all that clever (consider how smart the average person is, then remember that half of them are stupiderbthan that), nor have they all been exposed to many of these terms. I think that is okay; this is a pubic service that should be as accessible as reasonably practicable, not a cerebral drama series. You can call it 'dumbing down' if you like, but if the information provided is more understandable to, say, children, people with mild learning disabilities, people for whom English is not their first language, people who rarely use the railway, etc., then that is a good thing in my view.

Of course, a value judgment needs to be made in terms of when a little jargon is preferable - as per the above, I'd probably keep 'points' despite that being arcane to many - but the example in the original post is both more concise and clearer to the average person, so why not 'dumb it down'?

 

[Rescars]

Whilst we're at it, if the aim is to make things easier to understand, should similar thinking also be applied rigourously to ticket pricing structures?

 

[JKF]

“Get off” sounds awful. If that’s an evolution of language then no thanks.

I’d really prefer rail announcements not to resemble something that sounds like high-school slang for what someone was up to the previous night.

I’d prefer we kept traditional British terms like ‘Secondary School’ rather than the import American phrases like ‘ High School’ but each to their own!

 

[AlterEgo]

Whilst we're at it, if the aim is to make things easier to understand, should similar thinking also be applied rigourously to ticket pricing structures?

Sure, it'll make tickets more expensive.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Saturday at 22:01 ==

I’d prefer we kept traditional British terms like ‘Secondary School’ rather than the import American phrases like ‘ High School’ but each to their own!

High School is not an Americanism. It originated in Britain, principally in Scotland from where the Americans got the term.

 

[GordonT]

High School is not an Americanism. It originated in Britain, principally in Scotland from where the Americans got the term.

Edinburgh's Royal High School dates back to 1505.

 

[TUC]

You're clearly a smart person who hasn't had any difficultly learning these terms, and also has been exposed to them from a young age. I understand your point that jargon can keep things more concise (that is often the reason these words exist); a lot of people don't know what 'points' are but if a station announcement had to say "this train has been delayed due to a fault with the movable pieces of track that allow trains to move between lines" that would get tedious sharpish!

But - not everyone using the railway is all that clever (consider how smart the average person is, then remember that half of them are stupiderbthan that), nor have they all been exposed to many of these terms. I think that is okay; this is a pubic service that should be as accessible as reasonably practicable, not a cerebral drama series. You can call it 'dumbing down' if you like, but if the information provided is more understandable to, say, children, people with mild learning disabilities, people for whom English is not their first language, people who rarely use the railway, etc., then that is a good thing in my view.

Of course, a value judgment needs to be made in terms of when a little jargon is preferable - as per the above, I'd probably keep 'points' despite that being arcane to many - but the example in the original post is both more concise and clearer to the average person, so why not 'dumb it down'?

How do you think the rest of us learnt such words? They're not technical ones, just ones from the background of everyday life. They're not ones dependent upon parents being rail staff or enthusiasts. They're just words you pick up unconsciously from life around you. Indeed, words like 'terminate' are not even that. They're just ordinary English. (How would a series like The Terminator have had that used as a title without most people knowing that terminate means 'bring to an end'?)

If multiple previous generations understood such words, it's hard to see why the current generation should be any less capable.

 

[AlterEgo]

If multiple previous generations understood such words, it's hard to see why the current generation should be any less capable.

You now live in a country which has 5 or 6 million people in it who have English as a second or third language. That wasn't the case even when I was born 40 years ago.

 

[GordonT]

You now live in a country which has 5 or 6 million people in it who have English as a second or third language. That wasn't the case even when I was born 40 years ago.

Although that's a fair point, exposure to new words is how they will become more confident in speaking English, and the opportunity to check particular words out for future reference at your fingertips these days as I would do in a Spanish-speaking country shouldn't be overlooked.

 

[AlterEgo]

Although that's a fair point, exposure to new words is how they will become more confident in speaking English, and the opportunity to check particular words out for future reference at your fingertips these days as I would do in a Spanish-speaking country shouldn't be overlooked.

It's not the railway's job to educate people in speaking English. It should use the language which is understood by the widest swathe of its user base.

 

[TUC]

If I went to live in France or Germany, I would not expect simplified French or German on the train, or in any other kind of announcements. It goes with going to live in a country thst it's you who needs to make the adjustments.

 

[AlterEgo]

If I went to live in France or Germany, I would not expect simplified French or German in the train, or any other kind of announcements. It goes with going to live in a country thst it's you who needs to make the adjustments.

You would get English announcements on many trains there.

 

[rmHawk765]

My GN station still retains all the 'traditional' announcements which I'm quite happy about. I'm not entirely sure people have forgotten what 'terminate' and 'formed of' mean.

In fact this is true for most ECML stations, I think it's mostly the core and everything south of it that has modified announcements. And apparently the trains themselves now.

 

[bramling]

How do you think the rest of us learnt such words? They're not technical ones, just ones from the background of everyday life. They're not ones dependent upon parents being rail staff or enthusiasts. They're just words you pick up unconsciously from life around you. Indeed, words like 'terminate' are not even that. They're just ordinary English. (How would a series like The Terminator have had that used as a title without most people knowing that terminate means 'bring to an end'?)

If multiple previous generations understood such words, it's hard to see why the current generation should be any less capable.

100%. It isn’t a case of being smart, more one of making the smallest amount of effort.

Just like any word, “mummy what does terminate mean?”. The smarter ones might work it out for themselves.

 

[coppercapped]

You would get English announcements on many trains there.

This response is not relevant.

English has become the lingua franca for international air travel, science and technology. Signs in many airports around the world use English as a second language to assist those who can't read e.g., Japanese, Chinese or Malayan characters. In many countries English is also often used on signs in addition to the local language in places such as railway stations and other places where there are large numbers of tourists and travellers.

As the international lingua franca happens to be the native language of the UK which language would you suggest should be used as the assistance language here? You have a choice from some 7,000.

 

[Bletchleyite]

“Get off” sounds awful. If that’s an evolution of language then no thanks

"Leave" works better. Plain English can (and should) still be formal.

 

[AlterEgo]

This response is not relevant.

English has become the lingua franca for international air travel, science and technology. Signs in many airports around the world use English as a second language to assist those who can't read Japanese, Chinese or, e.g., Malayan characters. In many countries English is also often used on signs in places such as railway stations and other places where there are large numbers of tourists and travellers.

As the international lingua franca happens to be the native language of the UK which language would you suggest should be used as the assistance language here? You have a choice from some 7,000.

It's entirely relevant. The communication is done in the medium in which the audience is familiar. It is the fundamental principle of providing passenger information.

Here, people are getting annoyed you can't use terms like alight in lieu of "get off" or "leave" while in other countries they are quite happy to supplement the language entirely. It's a non-complaint. Everyone agrees there should be Plain English spoken with non-ambiguous terms when authorising a move with the signaller for example. I don't see a good reason to drop that practice because the consequence is a paying customer messes up their journey.

Plain English is a good thing. We live in a less literate society than before where fewer and fewer pieces of information are given verbally or in writing in customer contexts. This coupled with recent mass immigration means some people lack a large vocabulary. That's before you get into the benefits for people with disabilities (think about how you might use or not use some words for people hard of hearing for example). It makes organisations look trustworthy and open.

If I went into Northampton and asked 100 people on the street what they should do on a bus if I said "alight here" I reckon 90 to 95 would give the correct answer with 5 or 10 being confused. I bet 99 would understand what "get off here" or "leave here" meant.