Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (10)

[On why he wrote] “Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.’ ”
~Kurt Vonnegut (pictured)

“Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into life.”
~Esther Freud

“I’ve been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can’t do without.”
~Robert Penn Warren

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Help for writers who get stuck

Robert Maurer, Ph.D., a psychologist, offers this advice to writers and other people who may sometimes have trouble starting the creative process:

“Although you can’t force your brain to cough up creative ideas on demand, you can program it to launch the imaginative process simply by asking yourself a small question (such as) what’s one thing I wish to contribute to the world” with this project?

“Remember: If you repeat the question over the course of several days or weeks – or for however long it takes – the hippocampus (the part of the brain that stores information) will have no choice but to address it. And in its own way, on its own timetable, the brain will begin giving you answers.”

The passage is from Dr. Maurer’s book, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way.

The Takeaway: If you find that you can’t become creative on demand, take heart; you can do it eventually. For more on getting unstuck, see this previous post.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (9)

“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”
~William Faulkner

“In discourse about public affairs, words matter much more than most people appreciate. We live immersed in language so twisted and abused, in part by the design of interested parties and in part by the sloth of inattentive speakers and listeners, that we often fail to notice or object to linguistic miscarriages that pass for intelligent expression.”
~Robert Higgs

“Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.”
~Elmore Leonard (pictured)

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (8)

“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”
~C.S. Lewis (pictured)

“If you can’t write your strategy or idea on the back of your business card, it’s too complex to execute. Keep it simple.”
~Dawn Hudson

“It’s [seducing female writing students is] not worth it. Afterward, you have to read their short stories.”
~Christopher Hitchens

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (7)

“God does not much mind bad grammar, but He does not take any particular pleasure in it.”
~Erasmus (pictured)

“Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.”
~Matthew Arnold

“The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.”
~W. Somerset Maugham

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

Thanks to Paul G. Henning, a friend and a clear writer, for pointing out the first two quotations.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (6)

“People mess things up, forget and remember all the wrong things. What’s left is fiction.”
~Daniel Wallace (pictured)

“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.”
~William Faulkner

“I hate being compared to Faulkner – this kind of uppity, snooty southerner with his turgid prose based more or less on the Bible. I can’t bear to read Faulkner. It makes me want to puke. I just loathe Faulkner. And you can quote me on all of that.”
~Ernest Hebert

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
~Mark Twain

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

Quoting out of context (2)

Here’s an egregious example of quoting out of context. After three teens are shot, one of them fatally, a television station broadcasts an interview with a four-year-old boy. The interview in part:

Reporter: "What are you going to do when you get older?"

Boy: “I’m going to have me a gun!”

Context – the full interview:

Reporter: “Boy, you ain’t scared of nothing! Damn! When you get older are you going to stay away from all these guns?”

Boy: “No.”

Reporter: “No? What are you going to do when you get older?”

Boy: “I’m going to have me a gun!”

Reporter” “You are! Why do you want to do that?”

Boy: “I'm going to be the police!”

By airing the statement, “I’m going to have me a gun!” with no context, the television station misleads the viewer as to the speaker’s intention.

The Takeaway: Whenever you quote something, consider carefully whether the quotation needs context in order to be intelligible to the reader.

See disclaimer.

Quoting out of context

What does “quoting out of context” mean? It means either: (1) quoting with no context, or (2) quoting with the wrong context. Often, the lack of context or the presence of the wrong context changes the apparent meaning of the quotation.

Example of the first type of quoting out of context

A famous example of the first type (quoting with no context) is the old saying:

“Money is the root of all evil.”

Here is the original context of the quotation:

“But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (Holy Bible, King James Version, 1 Timothy, Chapter 6, Verses 9-10.)

When we see the original context, we immediately recognize that the writer was not condemning money per se, but the love (and therefore the misuse) of money.

Example of the second type of quoting out of context

Here is an example of the second type (quoting with the wrong context):

“Although selling at the lower end of what some analysts believed the company would go for, the Milan-based maker of Miu Miu handbags still raised $2.1 billion for a mere 16.5 percent of the company to grow its brand. Sex and the City may be relegated to running sanitized episodes in syndication, but company president and head designer Miuccia Prada figures there’s a boom somewhere and there are plenty of women needing expensive bags. ‘It’s where the future is,’ she told the Wall Street Journal.” (Boldface added.)

It sounds as if Ms. Prada were saying that the future is women buying expensive bags. But here’s the context of the quotation, from the original article (requires subscription) in The Wall Street Journal:

“Ms. Prada believes an IPO [initial public offering] in Hong Kong will help the family-owned company draw upon the dynamism of Asia and expose some members of her management team to a different culture.

“ ‘The whole idea of doing this here, for me, was exciting because it is where things are happening. It’s where the future is,’ she said.” (Boldface added.)

It’s clear that she was talking about the Asian market as the future.

The Takeaway: Whenever you quote something, consider carefully whether the quotation needs context to be intelligible to the reader. And if you decide to include context, be careful to select the right context.

See disclaimer.

The damage caused by corporatespeak

In a June 2005 review of Don Watson’s book Death Sentences, Leigh Buchanan paraphrases Mr. Watson’s warnings about the damage caused by corporatespeak:

“By relying on a common, largely abstract vocabulary, companies miss the chance to differentiate themselves. By omitting empathy and directness from their marketing, they fail to bond with customers. By avoiding the concrete and the specific, they raise suspicions at a time of pervasive mistrust. And by condoning sludgy writing, they succumb to sludgy thinking. (After all, if you don’t have to say what you mean, you don’t have to know what you mean.) Such language is a disability, preventing corporations from conducting intelligent, nuanced conversations with employees and customers.” (Emphasis in original.)

The Takeaway: A professional writer should always be consciously aware of the diction he is using. If a freelance assignment (or your full-time job) requires you to write in corporatespeak, so be it. Just remember that it is corporatespeak, or it will eventually contaminate everything else you write.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (5)

If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that … The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order. Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness.
~Stephen King (pictured)

One of the sad and dangerous signs of our times is how many people are enthralled by words, without bothering to look at the realities behind those words.
~Thomas Sowell

People are always asking me how I get so much written. The obvious-but-true answer is: by spending so much time writing.
~Terry Teachout

A philosopher is a sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted.
~Alan Watts

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Puerile writing vs. grown-up writing (3)

Puerile writing, as contrasted with grown-up writing, can sound jarringly out of place in a grown-up situation. And the person who wrote the puerile copy can look narcissistic, histrionic and even untrustworthy.

An example of puerile writing

For example, last Friday a company called Onswipe issued a press release that begins with this paragraph:

“Onswipe announced today that it has raised a $5 million Series Awesome to keep up with overwhelming demand from both publishers and advertisers. Onswipe provides the ability for publishers to make their content look amazing on tablet devices such as iPad while providing an advertising platform to make publishers boatloads of money.” (Boldface added.)

Analysis

A first round of venture funding is traditionally called “Series A.” Apparently, an Onswipe writer chose to call Onswipe’s Series A “Series Awesome.” Perhaps he thought he was being clever. Spoken in a bar it may sound clever; written in a press release it sounds histrionic.

Later in the paragraph the writer uses the hyperbolic words amazing and boatloads. Again, that’s OK in a bar but overstated in a press release. (Although the word overwhelming also appears to be hyperbolic here, it is a legitimate usage because it is credibly supported by a fact stated in the second paragraph.)

Later in the release, we encounter more examples of hyperbolic, histrionic language; for example:

the Summer of Onswipe

world domination

desperately

The Takeaway: When you are writing to grown-ups, write like a grown-up.* Puerile writing can make you sound inexperienced and even untrustworthy. Always edit your copy carefully. And, if possible, have it edited by a perceptive reader who will be candid with you. Remember, it is easier to endure private criticism than public ridicule.

See disclaimer.

*However, this rule does not apply in reverse. For example, if you are a bank president writing a speech that you will deliver at a high-school graduation, do not try to write like a teenager. It is rhetorical slumming and is in bad taste.

Think about the words you use (1)

We writers, like most of our neighbors and friends, often use words without thinking about them. But we are writers; therefore we should think about the words we use. We should pay closer attention than most people do.

Example

For pedagogical purposes, I chose an example that comes at you from an unexpected direction.

Eric Peters, a columnist, writes:

“The question isn’t whether you’re a liberal or conservative.

“Who can say what either of those labels means anymore? Like ‘Christian,’ a liberal (or a conservative) can be anything he wants to be and still claim the label.

“The question, I think, is whether you’re an authoritarian.

“It is a question that neatly cleaves one group of people from another. There’s no hedging, no getting around the central thing – which is: Do you – or don’t you – support using force to compel other people to do what you want them to do? If you do, then you are an authoritarian. It does not matter whether your desire to control others is based on ‘liberal’ goals or ‘conservative’ ones.

“To your victims, the defining thing is force.” (Emphasis in original.) (Full essay here.)

This blog is about writing, not politics, so I don’t wish to comment on the politics of the example. I do wish to point out that Mr. Peters has written a thought-provoking essay about two words we use too casually.

I believe we writers should be constantly challenging ourselves. One technique I use, several times per day, is to ask myself:

“How clear will this be to my reader? How can I make it clearer?”

The Takeaway: Think about the words you use. Jacques Barzun suggests you “resensitize (your) mind to words” and always “have a point and make it by means of the best word.”

While writing this post, I looked up these words: likely, clear, pedagogical and direction.

See disclaimer.

Safety warnings (2)

Clear writing is crucial in a safety warning. People who write safety warnings should be especially diligent.

For example, a recent article in The Wall Street Journal discusses the clarity of medicine labels. Many patients don’t understand them, and the results of their misunderstanding are sometimes life-threatening.

The Takeaway: Read the article; it demonstrates how easy it is for a writer of safety warnings to incorrectly assume that what he wrote will be clear to all readers.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (4)

“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”
~ Blaise Pascal (pictured)

“A word about 'plain English.' The phrase certainly shouldn’t connote drab and dreary language. Actually, plain English is typically quite interesting to read. It’s robust and direct – the opposite of gaudy, pretentious language. You achieve plain English when you use the simplest, most straightforward way of expressing an idea. You can still choose interesting words. But you’ll avoid fancy ones that have everyday replacements meaning precisely the same thing.”
~ Bryan A. Garner

“Writing is a form of therapy. Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.”
~ Graham Greene

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Safety warnings

Clear writing is crucial in a safety warning. People who write safety warnings should be especially diligent. But often they are sloppy.

Here’s an example of sloppy work:

Example

On March 31, 2011, The Weather Channel published a government “Winter Storm Warning” for the part of New Hampshire where I live. Here’s one paragraph:

A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE FORECAST THAT WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT... FOOD... AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY. (Boldface added.)

In only 51 words, the author manages to commit six errors or irregularities.

First: He uses all capitals, which is rude.

Second: “Winter Storm Warning” is a misnomer – March 31 was the 12th day of astronomical spring and the 31st day of climatological spring.

Third: The author says “heavy snow” in the first sentence and “significant amounts of snow” in the second sentence. The reader wonders, “Are these two different terms for the same thing or two different terms for two different things? Does the government define these terms? Where?”

Fourth: The author says “Only travel in an emergency” when he probably means “Travel only in an emergency.”

Fifth: The author uses ellipses in a list of survival gear. The reader wonders, “Did he use ellipses deliberately and correctly, to indicate omissions from the list? If so, what survival gear did he omit, and why? Or, did he use ellipses in place of commas, just to be cute? If so, why did the government put such a frivolous person in charge of writing safety warnings?”

Sixth: The author uses the word “emergency” twice: First he tells you to “[o]nly travel in an emergency.” Then he tells you to keep an extra flashlight, food and water in your vehicle “in case of an emergency.” Is this emergency different from the emergency that had caused you to drive in spite of the storm?

The Takeaway: If you are ever responsible for writing or editing a safety warning, give it your most careful attention. Readers depend on you.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (3)

“Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think…”
~ Henry Louis (“H.L.”) Mencken

“[T]he use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection.”
~ Edward Gibbon

“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by then I was too famous.”
~ Robert Charles Benchley (pictured)

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Avoid using multiple hedges (3)

Avoid using multiple hedges; they undermine your credibility. Here’s an example:

During a May 2004 interview, Christopher Dymond, solar engineer for Oregon’s Department of Energy, was asked what motivates him to run his project, “Solar Creek – Clean Renewable Energy for Everybody’s Kids.” Here is his response, in part (boldface added, to highlight hedges):

I guess what motivates me at the core, is that we are now living on a planet with an atmosphere is as different, in terms of greenhouse gasses – the ability of the planet to hold heat around itself like a thermal blanket – it’s as different today, as when there was a mile of ice up where Chicago would be during the last ice age. In other[ ]words, we have as much in common with that ice age period as we do with the period between 10,000 years ago and the 1850’s. Things have changed that much. And it’s going to take many decades for that impact to translate into a different climate[.] The oceans today have huge amounts of thermal mass, so what we’ve done is started the ball rolling, and we haven’t seen it yet go anywhere; it’s just rolling. But it’s going to start changing everything. And the rate at which we are changing is accelerating. It’s not only that we have changed the atmosphere, but we are going to continue to change it over the next many decades. And then when we finally decide to turn this big ship around, it’s going to take several more decades to do this. And every decade that we wait will make it that much harder to reverse the trend. So it’s going to take ten times, a hundred times longer to stop, just to return to where we are now, depending on how long we wait. The ozone layer doesn’t repair itself nearly at the rate that it is lost. Depending on how long [we] wait, it could be three hundred years before the ozone in the atmosphere that we have lost returns just to where it is now. It’s a slow process. So that’s sort of at the core of the issue for me.

Analysis

First hedge: At the beginning of his response he uses straightforward language (“what motivates me… is”) but he hedges it with “I guess.”

Second hedge: He hedges it further with “at the core.”

Third hedge: Then, after 282 words of detail, he summarizes. But instead of using the word “motivates” or “motivation,” he uses the non-committal phrase “the issue for me.”

Fourth hedge: He further hedges “the issue for me,” making it “the core of the issue for me.”

Fifth hedge: He further hedges “the core of the issue for me,” making it “at the core of the issue for me.”

Sixth hedge: He further hedges “at the core of the issue for me,” making it “sort of at the core of the issue for me.” He keeps backing away.

Most men, when talking about their pet projects, speak in clear, assertive language. In contrast, Mr. Dymond sounds like he is trying to avoid speaking in clear, assertive language.

If Mr. Dymond believes in what he is doing, he should talk more like this:

What motivates me is the threat to the atmosphere. We are damaging the atmosphere, and the amount of damage is increasing exponentially. If we keep delaying the use of solar power, it may take three hundred years for the atmosphere to recover. I want to do my part – right now – to help stop the damage.

The Takeaway: When listeners hear multiple hedges, especially multiple hedges in a single sentence, they stop taking you seriously. They may even wonder if you are telling the truth. If you must use hedges, use them sparingly.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (2) – Stephen Sondheim

In his book Finishing the Hat, the great American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (pictured) has this to say about writing and clarity:

There are only three principles necessary for a lyric writer, all of them familiar truisms. They were not immediately apparent to me when I started writing, but have come into focus via Oscar Hammerstein’s tutoring, Strunk and White’s huge little book The Elements of Style and my own sixty-some years of practicing the craft. I have not always been skilled or diligent enough to follow them as faithfully as I would like, but they underlie everything I've ever written. In no particular order, and to be written in stone:

Content Dictates Form

Less is More

God is in the Details

all in the service of:

Clarity

without which nothing else matters.

The Takeaway: Stephen Sondheim’s “three principles necessary for a lyric writer” are also necessary for a prose writer. Following them will help you write more clearly.

Thanks to Paul Henning, a friend and a clear writer, for pointing out this wonderfully concise bit of wisdom.

See disclaimer.

The vague antecedent (5)

A frequent error that hampers clear writing is the vague antecedent. An antecedent is a noun (a word, phrase or clause) that a pronoun refers to. Generally, the antecedent should precede the pronoun.* The antecedent should be clear, not vague.

In summary: every pronoun should have an easily identifiable noun as its antecedent.

Example

Here’s part of the setup instructions for a JVC television receiver:

When you turn your television on for the first time the interactive plug-in menu will appear. The plug-in menu helps you to get your TV ready to use by letting you set your preferences for:

• The language in which you want the onscreen menus to appear.

• Setting the TV’s clock to the correct time so your timer functions will work properly. You can choose “Auto” or “Manual” for setting the clock.

• The auto tuner setup of which channels you wish to receive.

We recommend you complete the interactive plug-in items before you start using your television.

Note:

• If you press the MENU button while setting up the interactive plug-in menu, it will skip over it.

Analysis

When the reader reads that Note, he sees that the pronoun it appears twice. He assumes that the two pronouns do not refer to the same antecedent.

Having made that assumption, the reader then wonders, “what are the two antecedents, and therefore how can I restate the sentence?”

Two plausible restatements are:

• If you press the MENU button while setting up the interactive plug-in menu, the regular (everyday) menu will skip over the interactive plug-in (one-time) menu.

• If you press the MENU button while setting up the interactive plug-in menu, the interactive plug-in (one-time) menu will skip over the regular (everyday) menu.

There are many additional plausible restatements; most of them depend on what the JVC writer means by “skip over.” Does he mean interrupt or pause or abort or overwrite or something else?

The answer is more than a matter of semantics. For example, “If you press the MENU button while setting up the interactive plug-in menu, the action will pause the interactive plug-in menu” would mean that the reader could immediately resume the interactive plug-in menu.

In contrast, abort would mean that he could not immediately resume the interactive plug-in menu. And he would not know how to restart the interactive plug-in menu, or even whether it would be possible to do so.

Our poor reader is now stuck; he has no additional context to help him guess. If he wants to know what the JVC writer means, he must press the MENU button while setting up the interactive plug-in menu and see what happens – notwithstanding that the ostensible purpose of written instructions is to allow the customer to set up the equipment without having to rely on guesswork, telepathy, experimentation or divine intervention.

The Takeaway: Avoid vague antecedents. Every pronoun should have an easily identifiable noun (a word, phrase or clause) as its antecedent. Don’t make your readers guess which noun you mean. It’s bad manners and bad business.

See disclaimer.

*The English word antecedent comes from Latin for going before.

Empathy helps you connect with your reader

Empathy helps you connect with your reader. Failure to empathize with the reader is the fundamental error of the careless writer. It is the error on which he builds all his other errors.

I just saw a terrific example of the value of empathy. In a blog post titled “The Worst Sales Email EVER,” inside sales expert Trish Bertuzzi quotes a very un-empathic email she received. She comments, in part:

“There is absolutely nothing in this email to show that the sender took the time to learn anything about me or my business. There are no like-customer references, no acknowledgement of my role or business challenges and the email is filled with marketing speak.”

Read her entire post. It is a practical, real-life lesson in the value of empathy.

The Takeaway: Before writing anything – even an email – build empathy by visualizing your intended reader. And if you are selling something, you need research in addition to empathy.

See disclaimer.