You can say a lot in only 100 words (8)

Another writer who does a lot with 100 words is Butler Shaffer (pictured), a professor of law. In his well-constructed article titled “The Foundations of Our Extinction” is this concise paragraph:

What passes as “news” in today’s culture is largely centered upon hostilities between or among persons or events that can be exploited for the purpose of further empowering the state not only to resolve the immediate conflict, but to mobilize the energies of massive numbers of persons to be galvanized into demanding a governmental response. If, for instance, a white police officer shoots an unarmed black man, those who identify themselves with the race of the victim will likely react with a more intense anger than might be the case if a white policeman shot an unarmed white man. (99 words)

Notice also that, although Mr. Shaffer uses two very long sentences (55 and 44 words long, respectively), his good sentence structure makes his meaning clear.

The Takeaway:  If you want to make your writing more concise, keep reading writers who are good at writing concisely. To see the earlier pieces in this series, search on “Mr. Clarity” and “You can say a lot in only 100 words.” For even more examples of good concision, search on “Mr. Clarity” and “Concise writing is usually clear writing.”

See disclaimer.

Avoiding redundancy (6)

Originally created

“Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.” (Source)

Something can be created only once; therefore, “originally created” is redundant.

Potential red flag

“Rising Inventories = Potential Red Flag” (Source)

A red flag is an “indicator of potential problems”; therefore, “Potential Red Flag” is redundant.

A snow event

“Parking During a Snow Event” (Source)

Snow (a form of precipitation) is an event; therefore, “Snow Event” is redundant.

Snow plowing events

“The City of Hudson has a specific ordinance that deals with snow plowing events that require all residents to remove their vehicles from all City streets, roadways and city-maintained alleys.” (Source)

Snow plowing is an event; therefore; therefore “snow plowing events” is redundant.

The Takeaway: Whether you are speaking or writing, be careful to avoid redundancy. If you use a lot of redundancies, your intelligent listeners or readers may conclude that you are ill-educated, stupid or careless.

See disclaimer.

Unintentional hedging (8)

Here are two more examples of people unintentionally hedging their statements.

A witness in the George Zimmerman trial:

“One guy on top in the black hoodie was pretty much just throwing down blows on the guy kind of MMA [mixed martial arts]-style.” (Boldface added.) (Source)

And a restaurant employee being interviewed by the press:

“They came into the restaurant itself and a lot of customers were kind of scared,” one restaurant employee told Fox 8 news in Cleveland. “They were threatening employees, they were threatening me and some customers.” (Boldface added.) (Source)

The Takeaway: If you intend to hedge, hedge: “I’ll be there about four o’clock.” Otherwise, don’t hedge. Say what you mean, and you will earn more respect.

See disclaimer.

Unintentional hedging (7)

Here’s a quick and easy way to write and speak more clearly: Don’t hedge unintentionally. For example, don’t unintentionally use kind of. Unintentional hedging diminishes, undermines or negates your message. Here are three quick examples:

Regarding Linda Ronstadt’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ms. Ronstadt’s producer said:

“When certain people got in, before Linda, I was kind of outraged.” (Source)

Unintentional hedging is not surprising on Tumblr:

“IT'S KIND OF UNBEARABLE” (Source)

But even the Washington Post, whose writers and editors presumably are grown up and literate, sometimes indulges in this nonsense:

“Everything today is kind of horrible, so here are some penguins dressed up as Santa Claus” (Source)

If you think something is horrible, say “It’s horrible,” not “It’s kind of horrible.” If you don’t think something is horrible, don’t use the word horrible at all; use a word that says what you really mean to say. Saying what you really mean to say will create the impression that you are literate, not semi-literate.

Many people use more than one kind of or like per minute. If you hedge that frequently, even obtuse listeners are going to wake up and notice it. When they do, they will receive this unintended message from you: “I’m not really saying anything. I’m just thinking out loud, and I’m not even sure of the thoughts. So, don’t listen to me.” When I hear a public speaker do that, I stand up and walk out. Life is too short to be wasted on reading or listening to semi-literate slobs.

The Takeaway: Say what you mean. If you intend to hedge, hedge: “I’ll be there about four o’clock.” Otherwise, don’t hedge. Say what you mean, and you will earn more respect.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (37)

“You are never too old to set another goal or dream another dream.”
~C. S. Lewis

“Those who seek for and follow the Tao are strong of body, clear of mind, and sharp of sight and hearing. They do not load their mind with anxieties, and are flexible in their adjustment to external conditions.”
~Zhuang Zhou

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.”
~Aldous Huxley

“Peace is at once the mother and the nurse of all that is good for man; war, on a sudden and at one stroke, overwhelms, extinguishes, abolishes, whatever is cheerful, whatever is happy and beautiful, and pours a foul torrent of disasters on the life of mortals.”
~Erasmus

“My reputation for writing quickly and effortlessly notwithstanding, I am strongly in favor of intelligent, even fastidious revision, which is, or certainly should be, an art in itself.”
~Joyce Carol Oates

“Work is more fun than fun.”
~Noel Coward

“In a PC world, humor is a capital offense. ”
~Taki

“If you don’t know what else to do, drink beer.”
~Wally Byam

The Takeaway: “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” ~Robert Frost

See disclaimer.

Gobbledygook (7)

Pat Buchanan (pictured) is astute enough to spot gobbledygook, and combative enough to call people on it.

For example, in an article about high school admissions policy, Mr. Buchanan quotes Jeremy Shughart, admissions director at the merit-based Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (Fairfax County, Virginia):

“Says Shughart, ‘The committee is looking at a variety of admissions components and making recommendations for possible adjustments to future admissions cycles. … (We) will continue to work on increasing diversity at TJHSST and will continue to pursue outreach efforts to ensure talented underrepresented populations of students with a passion for math and science consider, apply to, and attend… Fairfax County Public Schools believes in the value of diversity.’ ”

Then Mr. Buchanan calls him on his gobbledygook:

“That is bureaucratic gobbledygook for saying they are going to start looking closer at the race and ethnicity of student applicants and begin using this criteria to bring in some — and to reject others.

“Race discrimination, against Asians, is coming to Fairfax County.”

The Takeaway: If you want to win debates and persuade people, strictly avoid gobbledygook – unless all your readers and listeners are stupid. Astute readers and listeners may call you on your gobbledygook. Then you are worse off than before: (1) you’ve made a weak point, and (2) your resort to gobbledygook demonstrates that you knew it was weak – otherwise, you would have stated it clearly and boldly.

You probably noticed that “this criteria” is ungrammatical.

See disclaimer.

You can say a lot in only 100 words (7)

Another writer who does a lot with 100 words is the former technology columnist and police reporter Fred Reed (pictured). In an article about why so many US citizens (plus legal and illegal immigrants living in the US) are thinking about secession, he begins with a remarkably concise statement of his diagnosis:

“The country is not a happy place. Today it is more consciously and resentfully divided, politically, regionally, racially and by sex and class than perhaps ever before. The rich prosper and the middle class sink. Three major racial blocs eye each other with fear and hostility. The hard left controls the media and government against the desires of much of the country, enforcing social engineering that is deeply disliked. Feminists make war on men, and destroy the schools and universities. Washington is widely loathed. Rules, laws, and regulations never voted on grow ever more burdensome and intrusive. Many quietly want out. The question is how to get there.” (108 words)

Mr. Reed’s grammar here is a little off kilter, but his meaning is clear, hard-hitting and unapologetic. This is the kind of writing that’s so clear and concise that it fools many beginners into thinking it’s easy. It isn’t; I know professors, business consultants and business executives who say less with 500 words,  even 1,000.

The Takeaway:  If you want to make your writing more concise, keep reading writers who are good at writing concisely. To see the earlier pieces in this series, search on “Mr. Clarity” and “You can say a lot in only 100 words.” For even more examples of good concision, search on “Mr. Clarity” and “Concise writing is usually clear writing.”

See disclaimer.

You can say a lot in only 100 words (6)

Last week I showed you a 76-word blog post from Seth Godin, an author and entrepreneur who turns out concise blog posts using only 100 words, more or less.

Another writer who does a lot with 100 words is the retired prison doctor and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple. In an article titled “This Can’t Last,” Mr. Dalrymple discusses signs of societal decline; his second paragraph is:

“A story is told by the British writer Christopher Booker in his account of the Moscow Olympics of 1980. A sports journalist of one of Britain’s less cerebral newspapers, than which no newspapers in the world are less cerebral, took one look around the Moscow airport on arrival, never having given the matter a moment’s thought before, and said something to the effect that ‘This system can’t last.’ This was not the opinion of almost all the learned Sovietologists of the day; but he had grasped in a matter of seconds a reality that they had not perceived in many years of close and devoted study.” (106 words)

Trusting that his readers know that the Soviet Union was dissolved a decade later, Mr. Dalrymple continues, turning his attention to his native Britain:

“Tiny details can, in my opinion, be very revealing of a society, as are those on a scan to a skilled radiologist. Here is one such, to which I referred recently in a public lecture. I had noticed on the website of the Guardian, Britain’s liberal newspaper, the self-description of a young woman, calling herself curlygirl24, who was looking for ‘soulmate’ (the name of the Guardian’s lonelyhearts service, though most readers of the paper would probably be horrified at the notion of a soul).” (84 words)

He quotes the young woman, in part:

“I have been told that I am a bit of a paradox: I seem to have the emotional fuzziness that comes with being a girl along with the capacity to drink copious amounts, still stand up and take the p*ss out of my friends and possibly random strangers.”

He comments:

“I said in my lecture that it seemed to me remarkable, and not altogether reassuring, that an educated young woman, a financial journalist according to her own report, who was on the lookout for, presumably, an equally educated young man, a member of our society’s intellectual and social elite, should think that drinking to excess and then being impolite to complete strangers would be an attractive quality. What did this tell us about our society, of its cultural level? I left it at that.” (84 words)

His article continues. It is worth reading in full.

The Takeaway: If you want to make your writing more concise, keep reading writers who are good at writing concisely. To see the earlier pieces in this series, search on “Mr. Clarity” and “You can say a lot in only 100 words.” For even more examples of good concision, search on “Mr. Clarity” and “Concise writing is usually clear writing.” My best wishes to you.

See disclaimer.

Bits and pieces (4)

Today we present examples of various errors that can make you sound ill-educated.

Logic error

“His father was a building contractor and his mother came from France.” (Source)

Shifting grammatical person

“I’ll clue you in on a secret: death is not the worst thing that could happen to you. I know we think that; we are the first society ever to think that. It’s not worse than dishonor; it’s not worse than losing your freedom; its not worse than losing a sense of personal responsibility. (Boldface added.) (Source)

General ignorance

In a harassment case, Tufts University “may have made free speech history by being the first institution in the United States to find someone guilty of harassment for stating verifiable facts directed at no one in particular.” In other words, a once-venerated university publicly demonstrated that its administrative staff did not know that harass is a transitive verb, but apparently was not embarrassed by this ignorance. (Source)

The Takeaway: Whenever you are writing something for publication – even if it’s “just” a blog – present yourself as a well-educated grown-up. Have an experienced editor read your copy; that’s what well-educated grown-ups do.

See disclaimer.

You can say a lot in only 100 words (5) - a master

In this series, “You can say a lot in only 100 words,” I’ve been showing you especially concise passages from longer works (journals, essays and books).

Today, I introduce you to (if you don’t know him already) a man who writes especially concise items all the time: Seth Godin (pictured). For example, his blog consists almost entirely of remarkably concise posts with an average length of about 130 words.

Here’s a recent post (76 words):

Like the pilot says, “sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.”

When you’re on one of those Disneyland boats, it takes you where Disney wants you to go. That’s why you got on. And so you are lulled, a spectator, merely a tourist.

So different, isn’t it, from driving yourself, choosing your own route and owning what comes of it?

How long have you been along for the ride? When is your turn to actually drive?

Seth Godin is a master. His posts are pithy and thought-provoking, and often inspiring.

The Takeaway: If you are striving to make your writing more concise, you should regularly read Seth Godin’s blog to watch how he does it. I read it for that reason, even though I’ve been a professional writer for 47 years. We should never stop learning.

See disclaimer.

Don’t add meaningless nouns

In a previous post, I talked about the silly practice of adding a meaningless noun immediately after a meaningful noun. In the US, probably the most familiar example is “the boarding process.”

Yesterday afternoon I saw two examples of meaningless nouns.

The first example

The first example was on my drive home from the hospital, where I had had a test. In a rural part of my drive home, I saw a handmade sign that offered “Firewood Materials.”

In most situations like this, I would stop and take a picture of the sign and try to interview the person who created it. But I wasn’t feeling so well, having been roughly handled at the hospital. As I drove by, I wondered what the seller would have handed me if I had walked up to him and asked, “Could I look at a sample of your firewood materials?”

I imagined that he would hand me a few packets of seeds – probably sugar maple, ash, beech and oak – and maybe a gardner’s trowel so I could plant them. Then I could harvest (is that the right word?) my firewood a few decades hence.

Or maybe, if I said I was not a patient man, he would just hand me a chain saw.

When I got home, I searched the web for “firewood materials.” Among some miscellaneous junk, I saw a URL for an organization called Don’t Move Firewood, which offers Don’t Move Firewood materials, such as posters, to help prevent the spread of pests that kill timber. A worthy cause, but I don’t think that was what the seller meant.

The second example

I started to read an “After Visit Summary” that my doctor had given me. Among other things, the summary said that the doctor was going to give me my test results by phone, one week later, between 5:00 and 9:00 PM. The summary explained that the reason for calling me in the evening was to allow me to receive my results “while you are in your home environment.” (Boldface added.)

Another example of the careless addition of a meaningless noun, I thought. But wait – a medical doctor wouldn’t be careless, would he? Maybe he put the word “environment” in there for a good reason – perhaps it was an attempt to conjure up an image of comfort and safety, to put me at my ease.

Uh-oh.

Hastily, I read the rest of the summary to see if it prohibited my having a drink tonight. It didn’t, and I did.

The Takeaway: Don’t add meaningless nouns. It can make you sound careless or even phony.

See disclaimer.

Is anywhere still safe from Dudespeak? – an editorial

Once in a while, out of curiosity, I take a hopeful glance at the web sites of institutions that may possibly be resisting, or at least avoiding, America’s decline into Dudespeak – the careless, vague, faddish, infantile diction of dudes and bimbos.

The other day, I read the web page for Harvard University’s Undergraduate Program in Applied Mathematics, a plausible place to expect serious grown-up diction.

Plausible but wrong, it turns out.

The person who wrote the page used the faddish impacts (n.) instead of effects.

He used interest (n.) and interests (n.), then apparently noticed that he had neglected to use the faddish passion, then quickly corrected this failure to conform.

At the end of the text, the writer inserted an “aw-shucks” disclaimer of elitism:

Graduates go on to careers in wide ranging fields, including business, law, medicine, academics, and well, just about anything.

I won’t bother to point out the grammar errors.

The Takeaway: If you want to be taken seriously and be perceived as a grown-up, you need to use grown-up diction. Avoid ingenuousness, coyness, silliness, faddishness and frivolousness – save them for parties.

See disclaimer.

The power of specificity (3) – an unspecified disaster

In previous posts (here and here) on the power of specificity, I’ve shown you samples of specificity and samples of vagueness.

Today I point you to another example of vagueness. It is a 565-word comment on an article. The article is titled “Why do expats go home? Why do they seek new overseas ‘havens’? Interviews with departing and relocating expats reveal the reasons.”

The author of the comment explains that he moved to Argentina ten years ago, that he had difficulty fitting in, and that he overcame his difficulty by making friends with some “bi-lingual and bi-cultural Argentines” who helped him understand the local culture and politics.

All well and good. The reader now expects the author to recommend that everyone expatriating to Argentina likewise find and make such friends, so as to enjoy a more serene and comfortable life there. And perhaps the author will provide a few examples of situations in which the friends and the understanding were helpful, and how.

But instead of doing those reasonable things, the author suddenly darkens the picture. He claims:

• That it is “absolutely important” that the reader understand the local culture and government;

• That “not understanding the culture, the laws, or the politics, can be an absolute disaster.”

After using such an extreme adverb (absolutely) and adjective (absolute), the author owes the reader some specificity. However, he gives none.

The reader wonders: “Is the government really that bad, or is this fellow just a blowhard? Will the cops kidnap and kill me, or just shake me down for a bribe now and then?”

Meanwhile, the author frivolously concludes his essay with this advice: “Keep your eyes and ears open.” This ancient cliche offers no specificity.

The Takeaway: If your writing is vague, you won’t make it specific just by adding absolutely, one of the most overused and abused adverbs in the English language, or other histrionic words. It will only make the reader more aware of how vague your writing is. Instead, just say what you mean, in specific, non-histrionic language. And give examples.

Don’t abuse the preposition “to” (5)

Don’t abuse the preposition to. In other words, don’t try to force it to do the work of other prepositions. I have posted examples before; here is another:

On a web page titled “Difference between Page Views and Impressions,” the first paragraph is:

“Page views and impressions are two commonly used words in the field of web analytics. These words are used interchangeably sometimes to denote the number of visits to a particular website. The term impression has a particular meaning however in context to page impressions; it is used as the same as page views. Generally, Impression is used in context to advertisement impressions.” (Boldface added.)

The preposition “to” should have been “of”: “in context to” should have been “in the context of.”

In the second paragaph, the writer has trouble with another preposition:

“The total number of page views can be divided with the number of unique visitors to calculate the average number of page views generated by a single user.” (Boldface added.)

The preposition “with” should have been “by”: “divided with” should have been “divided by.”

The Takeaway: Be precise with your prepositions. Carelessness can makes you look ill-educated and ill-read.

See disclaimer.

Random thoughts (9)

Diction: annoying affectations

I’m sure you have your pet-peeve examples of annoying affected diction. Here are three of mine:

Using genius as an adjective: a genius idea.

Following because with only a noun and a period (or exclamation point): I’m late because YouTube.

Combining a carelessly used issues with a carelessly used around: “Someone phoned me earlier to ask me to do some media training ‘around issues around teenagers.’ ”

Be careful with spell-checking software!

A journalist meant to write “back in the black” (i.e., profitable again), but in the published article the phrase was “back in the African American.” (Source)

Am I the only reader in the world…

…who thinks Don Quixote is boring? Three times I’ve tried and failed to read the whole novel. I’m giving up on it; I’m 71 and I have many more classics to read than time to read them. All due respect to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. I’m sure the failure is mine.

Slippage: commercial photography

About 40 years ago, I learned that food photographers are paid more than glamour photographers, in part because food photographers have to work very fast. During photo shoots, cool salads can go limp. Hot soup can cool and congeal. Hot coffee and grilled steaks can stop giving off steam. For decades, I admired food photographers for shooting hot foods and drinks while they were still hot and cool ones while they were still cool.

However, somewhere during the 1970s or 1980s, photography began to degrade, along with almost every other profession and activity in America. (Stephen King calls the phenomenon “slippage.”) Nowadays, food photos rarely look right. Dunkin’ Donuts shows you mugs of obviously cold coffee. McDonald’s shamelessly displays a poster showing a cold, congealing burger patty above the caption “Fresh off our grill.” I am afraid to even think about the professions of civil engineering and surgery.

My favorite proverb

I have always loved the Chinese proverb “He who treads softly goes far.” In my thirties I belatedly recognized that it was an apt summary of my own temperament. I usually quote the proverb as “He who treads softly travels far,” which seems to have better meter.

Blocking the distractions as you write

I recently read that Marcel Proust wrote in a cork-lined bedroom while wearing ear plugs. Now there was a writer who valued his concentration! Also, I understand he wrote pretty fast.

The Takeaway: Be here now.

See disclaimer.

The law – an editorial

As practiced in the United States, law is largely a filthy business, for which the practitioner needs a devious mind and strong stomach.

A recent, widely publicized letter from a lawyer demonstrates the point. The letter discusses an 18-year-old porn star, a professional poker player, a swimming pool and a broken foot.

You can read the background story and the lawyer’s letter here. Warning: risqué language.

The Takeaway: Don’t encourage your children to become lawyers.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (36)

“Comics are a gateway drug to literacy.”
~Art Spiegelman

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”
~Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian

“The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one’s peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.”
~Lynne Truss (pictured), in Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door*

“Washington and its fawning presstitutes branded the elected Ukrainian government that was a victim of Washington’s coup, ‘a corrupt dictatorship.’ The replacement government consists of a combination of Washington puppets and neo-nazis with their own military forces sporting Nazi insignias. The American presstitutes have been careful not to notice the Nazi insignias.”
~Paul Craig Roberts

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
~Alvin Toffler

“Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle.”
~Ludwig von Mises

“I’ve finally gotten to the bottom of things.”
~Ilka Chase (her epitaph)

The Takeaway: “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” ~Robert Frost

________________
*Burt Shavitz seems to be of a similar mind.


See disclaimer.

The Uninhabited Clause (24)

Here’s another example of the overuse of the Uninhabited Clause.* Below (in green) is the first paragraph of an article in Slate. The writer uses eight uninhabited clauses and only three inhabited clauses. I have boldfaced the subject and verb in each clause. In blue, I have interspersed my comments:

The great city of St. Louis has a major problem with gun violence.

   Non-human subject: city

Even as homicide rates have continued

   Non-human subject: rates

to decline elsewhere in the country, they have surged

   Non-human subject: they (i.e., rates)

in St. Louis, which last year saw a 33 percent rise in killing, to 159 in a city of 318,000.

  Non-human subject: which (i.e., St. Louis)

(Note: this does not include the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson,

  Non-human subject: this (the antecedent is ambiguous)

 which is in St. Louis County, a separate jurisdiction with 1 million people.)

   Non-human subject: which (i.e., Ferguson)

Criminologists point to all the usual reasons for the violence: a thriving drug trade, high unemployment among young men, and so on.

   Human subject: Criminologists

But a New York Times article on Tuesday noted

   Non-human subject: article 

that St. Louis police are contending with a factor that

   Human subject: police

their counterparts in many other high-crime cities are not (contending with): exceedingly lax gun laws.

   Human subject: counterparts

The Times reports:

   Non-human subject: Times

The Takeaway: Unless you are writing about abstract topics such as metaphysics or mathematics, you should strive to include persons in most of your clauses. Otherwise, you risk sounding academic and boring.
__________________
*My coinage, so far as I know.

See disclaimer.

"Comprised of" – an editorial

Whenever he sees the phrase “comprised of,” Bryan Henderson corrects it. He has corrected it 47,000 times. Read the story here.

I call Mr. Henderson a hero.

I also point out that if US high schools still taught Latin, people would not confuse comprise and compose.

The Takeaway:  If you are a well-educated person, give something back to society: good English. Always use correct diction and grammar, and refuse to imitate the diction and grammar of semiliterates.

See disclaimer.

Inspiration from W. C. Heinz, sportswriter

W. C. Heinz (pictured), who died in 2008 at the age of 93, was an impressive and influential sportswriter. He is especially remembered for the column “Death of a Racehorse,” which he wrote on deadline, in “about an hour, one draft, on a manual typewriter, in the rain,” at the racetrack.

The Takeaway: If you are a budding writer, you will be inspired by “Death of a Racehorse.” It has been called the “Gettysburg Address of sportswriting.” Read the full text, plus commentary, here.

Thanks to Paul G. Henning for pointing me to this gem.

 See disclaimer.