Introduction
 
                                           
 
 
 
 
 Introduction
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
 
 Why Was Simplified English Developed?
 
Even though English is more and more the international language of aerospace, certain facts must be faced:
 
      English has many forms depending on the nationality (or region of that nationality)
 
       And even the "purest" English, with all regional dialect or jargon removed, can be difficult to understand if the grammar or word usage is too complicated.
 
 In the late 1970s, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) asked the European Association of Aerospace Industries (AECMA) to investigate the readability of maintenance documentation in the civilian aircraft industry. AECMA asked the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) of America to assist in this project. The resulting project groups from AECMA and AIA researched the procedural texts in maintenance manuals. The product of this effort was this Guide.
 
 Simplified English (SE) was developed to help the users of English-language documentation understand what they read. SE is not only for those who do not have English as their native language, but also for those who do.
 
 What Is Simplified English?
 
 AECMA Simplified English is a controlled general vocabulary, and a set of writing rules. The vocabulary has sufficient words to express any technical sentence. The words were chosen for their simplicity and ease of recognition. When there are several words in English for a certain thing or action (synonyms), this Guide selects one of these synonyms to the exclusion of the others (whenever possible, "one meaning - one word"). For example, "start" was chosen instead of "begin", "commence", "initiate", or "originate".
 
 When there are several possible definitions of a word in English, the Guide selects one of these definitions to the exclusion of the others (whenever possible, "one word - one meaning"). For example, "to fall" has the definition of "to move down by the force of gravity", not "decrease".