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: Yesterday 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.