I spent the first many years of my professional life overseas working as a Linguist writing and speaking other people's languages. Even though my own proficiency was inadequate by their standards, I relied upon talented native speakers to enhance my publications so that they became well written in the target language. This is what the IETF also needs to do. The IETF authors needn't be very proficient in English, but they need to be proficient enough to coherently explain their technical points so that others can understand them. What is needed is to ensure that somebody, with the authors' oversight, is enlisted to improve the drafts so that the ultimate IETF documents themselves are in very good English. Because the IETF is now International, all the IETF documents must be in well-written English because we now come from so many languages and cultures. It is hard enough dealing in foreign languages without exacerbating the problem for the non-native English speaker by asking them to understand garbled versions of English. If it is difficult for the native English speaker to understand, it is much worse for the non-Native speakers (unless they happen to speak the same language as the garbler). BTW, some native English speakers also produce horrid documents because they are poor writers. These individuals also need to leverage editors who can translate their thoughts into coherent English. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf