When you use a lot of uninhabited clauses* – that is, when your prose contains mostly (or only) non-human subjects – you will sound hollow and theoretical.
You will also face an even greater danger: without intending to, you may sound as if you are trying to hide something.
For example, in last Thursday's post, I quoted the president and the marketing vice president of Embotics, a Canadian software company, who were talking – indirectly – about information technology managers who had deployed virtualization technology without having first conducted their customary impact assessments. But the president and the marketing vice president did not mention these real-life people.
The president said:
“Virtualization [did not go] through the normal impact assessments that most technologies have to weather before deployment.”
The marketing vice president said:
“[Virtualization] hadn’t gone through the normal impact assessments that most external data center technologies do before deployment.”
They talked as if virtualization (an abstraction) had evaded the assessments, like a criminal taking a detour to evade a police roadblock.
A more straightforward wording would be:
In their exuberance for virtualization, many IT managers rushed ahead without having made their customary impact assessments. They were taken by surprise when the results fell far short of their expectations.
The Takeaway: If you use a lot of uninhabited clauses, you may sound as if you are trying to hide something. This message (that you are trying to hide something) may overpower the message(s) you intend to convey. Don’t invite suspicion. Put some people in your prose.
See disclaimer.
*An uninhabited clause (my coinage) is a clause with a subject that is a physical thing or a concept, as opposed to a person or group of persons.
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