The uninhabited clause (23)

Please note: This is a long post (859 words).

Our average is 355 words.

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause that has a non-human subject: a thing or an idea as opposed to a person or group of persons. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses, but when we use a lot of them, we imply that nothing much is happening. In doing so, we bore and exhaust our readers. They prefer reading about people doing things.

Example

For example, below (in green) are the first three paragraphs of a New York Times article about a rape. The reporters use a lot of uninhabited clauses; in addition, they deliberately weaken several of their inhabited clauses. I have interspersed my specific comments (in blue):

The crime was horrific

Uninhabited.

and the verdict stunningly swift.

Uninhabited.

Two former Vanderbilt University football players are facing the possibility of decades in prison

Inhabited. However, the subjects aren’t doing much; just sitting around waiting to go to prison, where they won’t be doing much either.

after it took a jury less than four hours to convict them

Uninhabited – deviously so. The reporters distort the sentence by using the infinitive mood (“to convict”) so as to evade using the more natural declarative mood (“a jury convicted them in less than four hours”). So even the jury didn’t do much; it didn’t convict – it just “took.” This weasely trick continues the “nobody’s doing much” tone.

for their roles in a 2013 sexual assault of an unconscious woman.

Another distortion; this one is worthy of a shyster lawyer: The reporters use “for their roles in… a sexual assault” to avoid saying “for sexually assaulting.” By doing this, the reporters insinuate that the football players didn’t do much during the assault – they just had “roles.”

Two more former football players await trial.

Inhabited. Again, although there are human beings in this sentence, they are not doing much of anything; they’re just sitting around.

At a time of widespread alarm and almost daily news reports about sexual assaults on college campuses, it is hard to imagine a case more likely than this one, captured on video by the assailants, to mobilize a campus.

Uninhabited.

As if to underscore how pervasive the concerns have become nationally, representatives from 76 Tennessee colleges and universities were holding a conference on the subject here, not far from the courthouse

Inhabited: The subject “representatives” refers to human beings, but the verb is weak: “were holding.” In other words, nobody’s doing much. Just sitting around and expelling hot air.

where Tuesday’s verdict played out.

Uninhabited.

But transformative moments are hard to come by

Uninhabited.

when a community’s population turns over every four years

Technically inhabited, because a community is made up of human beings. But it’s a weak subject of a weak verb. The reporters continue to insinuate that nobody’s doing much.

and its members have a deep investment in its reputation.

Inhabited, because members are human beings. However, notice what verb the reporters use here: to have. This verb and to be are the two weakest verbs in English.

So interviews Tuesday and Wednesday at Vanderbilt brought out horror

Uninhabited – and fiendishly clever. The word “horror” is the first strong word in the article. The reporters, writing about rape – a felony and a heinous crime – have finally, after 166 words, used a strong word. But watch how they immediately weaken it. They don’t quote anyone who says “I recoiled in horror” or “I was horrified.” They just say that “interviews… brought out horror.” The horror just floated around the campus like a fog.

at what had happened

Uninhabited.

and a distinct distance from it. Until the trial began more than two weeks ago, the episode seemed to elicit little sense of urgency

Uninhabited.

— in fact, the student newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler, found that

Uninhabited.

many students were not even aware of it.

Inhabited. However, the clause contains the weakest verb in English: to be. 

Summary

The reporters seem to be trying to say (and at the same time, trying to avoid saying) that something horrible happened on campus but the students reacted blandly if at all. But the reporters themselves are writing blandly. They can hardly bear to even type a strong word. In fact, they go out of their way – sometimes deviously so – to evade using any strong words.**

This is intellectually dishonest writing. The reporters sound like they are trying to get away with saying as little as they can, while still filling column inches to get paid. They and the editor who approved this piece should hang their heads in shame.

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. You may even sound dishonest and therefore untrustworthy. Be aware that many reporters deliberately diminish what they write about. Imitate such writers only if you deliberately intend to diminish what you write about.
__________________

*My coinage, so far as I know.

**In contrast, look at the words and phrases I use: deviously, dishonest, distort, evade, felony, fiendishly, get away with, hang, heinous, insinuate, rape, shame, shyster, strive, untrustworthy, weasely.

See disclaimer.

How to make your writing more readable (1)

Rudolf Flesch

Many people have asked me how they can make their writing more readable; more like conversation; easier to follow. A good question and a good goal.

I’ll cover the most important tips in a moment. But first, read this extremely readable sample:

“Yes. Many of us are angry. Not all the time, not so we can’t manage daily life, not to the extent that we cannot love, not so much that we are on the verge of psychotic actions. But yes, there is cause for anger among today’s men.

“We are angry that our children are so easily taken from us, and so easily trained to believe that we abandoned them. We are angry that our sexuality and our anatomy are the butt of constant abusive jokes. We are angry that so few women take us seriously, because, well, they know they don’t have to. We are angry over being blamed for all the evil in the world, evil that harms us as much as anyone else. We are angry at being told for a lifetime that it is our fault that women cannot have everything they demand, and angry that it is never noticed how hard we try to help them with that.”

Those are the first 165 words of a 794-word essay. The rest of it is here.

On the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) scale, the sample scores a towering 75.2, which is easier to read than Reader’s Digest, which is specifically edited for readability. In short, writing aimed at grown-ups doesn’t get any more readable than this sample.

OK. How did the author achieve it?

Short words, on average: Flesch says the average word length in the sample is 3.9 characters. That’s very short.

A good mix of long and short words: There are lots of one- and two-syllable words, a few three-syllable  words (e.g., “psychotic”), a couple of four-syllable words (e.g., “anatomy”), and one five-syllable word (“sexuality”). Note that the four- and five-syllable words are familiar words.

Short sentences, on average: Flesch say the average sentence length in the sample is 18.0 words. That’s short to medium for English.

Good composition: In the third sentence, the author makes good use of the rhetorical device anaphora, using the word not four times. This device makes the longish (31-word) sentence easy to follow. He uses anaphora again in the second paragraph to guide the reader through:  “We are angry… We are angry… We are angry… We are angry… We are angry… ”

Good tone: The opening is stark, almost belligerent: “Yes. Many of us are angry.” That certainly gets the reader’s attention, but it may make him fear the author will go into a rage. So the author wisely softens the tone immediately with the four not’s and with the circumlocution “But yes, there is cause for anger among today’s men,” which (probably intentionally) does not have man or men as the subject of a verb. This deft early maneuvering assures the reader that the author is going to speak steadily and control himself.

And he does. Read the rest of the essay.

There is more to say about this little masterpiece, but I have covered the key points and I’m running long here.

The Takeaway: It is possible to make your writing more readable. Much more. If you keep reading good writers and keep Flesch-testing the readability of your own writing, you will steadily improve. You will probably surprise yourself at how far you go. If you are serious about readability, I suggest you start your course of improvement by reading all my posts about readability (scroll down to the LABELS and click on “READABILITY”). Then start getting into the habit of using Flesch every day. You can do it!

See disclaimer.

A surprising cluster of circumlocutions

Circumlocution is “the use of many words to say something that could be said more clearly and directly by using fewer words.” Academics, politicians, shyster lawyers, and politicians who are shyster lawyers love circumlocution.

You can imagine my surprise when, glancing for the first time at a punchy online magazine called Spiked (the magazine’s owners spell it “sp!ked”), I immediately spotted three circumlocutions in a single sentence.

It was the last sentence of the first paragraph of an article titled “What private schools teach state schools,” by education editor Joanna Williams.

Here’s the paragraph:

As headmaster of the exclusive Wellington College (fees for boarders: £32,940 per year), Anthony Seldon is remarkably coy about championing the privileges of private education. His report for the Social Market Foundation, Schools United: Ending the Divide Between Independent and State, published this week, is his latest attempt to talk himself out of a job through either abolishing fee-paying schools altogether, or eroding any distinction between the state and independent sectors. Seldon’s defensiveness is driven by the fact that private-school pupils are more likely than their state-educated peers to get better exam results, go to the most selective universities, secure jobs in the elite professions and earn more money. (Boldface added.)

Analysis

First circumlocution:

Sheldon’s defensiveness

An alternative:

Sheldon cowers

Second circumlocution:

is driven by

An alternative:

because

Third circumlocution:

the fact that

An alternative:

(Omit these three words entirely.)

And so,

Seldon’s defensiveness is driven by the fact that

becomes

Sheldon cowers because

The magazine’s name and layout are so aggressive that a reader might expect to read Spiked for a year without spotting a single circumlocution, insinuation, euphemism, equivocation or evasion. This reader isn’t going to read any further; life is too short.

The Takeaway: Wake up! Be direct!

See disclaimer.

The uninhabited clause (22)

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause that has a non-human subject: a thing or an idea as opposed to a person or group of persons. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses, but when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers. They prefer reading about people to reading about things or ideas.

Example

For example, here are the first two paragraphs of an article by two economics professors at Columbia University:

The extent of, and changes in, intergenerational mobility of wealth are central to understanding dynamics of wealth inequality, but are hard to measure. In this paper we argue that the share of women among the wealthiest Americans can be used as a proxy for the importance of inherited relative to self-made wealth. This approach assumes that women tend to inherit rather than make great fortunes. If so, a higher share of women among the wealthy would reflect a rise in inherited wealth at the top, and, thus, lower wealth mobility. Conversely, higher wealth mobility where self-made wealth replaces inherited wealth would result in more men at the top of the wealth distribution. Judged by this proxy, and corroborated by various data sources, wealth mobility decreased in the period 1925–1969 and increased thereafter. Such a pattern is consistent with an important role for technological change in shaping the wealth distribution, and can provide an explanation for why wealth concentration has remained stable, despite increasing income concentration in the last three decades.

Over the past century, the share of women among the very wealthy followed an inverse-U pattern, peaking in the late 1960s. According to estate tax returns, in 1925 one-quarter of the wealthiest 0.01 percent were women. This fraction rose rapidly through World War II (WWII) and then more slowly to peak in 1969, when women neared parity with men. Since then, the decline has been marked. By 2000, women’s share had fallen to one-third, its prewar level. While the rise was evident among all wealth groups in the top 1 percent of the wealth distribution, the decline was confined to the very top. Figure 1A graphs the share of women for four different groups in the top 1 percent among decedents by year. Figure 1B does the same for the “living” population with the help of estate-multipliers (a method that treats death as a random sampling device and uses mortality rates by age and gender to infer the distribution of wealth among the living, as described in the Data Appendix).

Analysis

The professors take an interesting topic – wealth – and make it sound academic and boring. In the first two paragraphs, they use 19 uninhabited clauses:

extent and changes are (and) are
share can be used
approach assumes
share would reflect (and) lower
mobility would result
wealth replaces
mobility decreased (and) increased
pattern is (and) can provide
concentration has remained
share followed
one-quarter were
fraction rose
decline has been
share had fallen
rise was evident
decline was confined
Figure 1A graphs
Figure 1B does
that (method) treats (and) uses

And only 3 inhabited clauses:

we argue
women tend
women neared

When we use a lot of of uninhabited clauses, we are in effect telling our readers: “Nothing’s happening here. Stop reading this. Go read a graphic novel.”

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.

Note: For comparison, my portion of the text in this post includes 6 uninhabited and 12 inhabited clauses.
_____________________
*My coinage, so far as I know.

See disclaimer.

Reductio ad absurdum (2)

Recently we discussed reductio ad absurdum, which is disproof of a proposition by showing an absurdity to which it leads. Here is another good example of reductio ad absurdum:

Example

Author Theodore Dalrymple noticed some large posters that declared “Science needs women.” He commented:

“Science does not need women any more than it needs foot fetishists, pole-vaulters, or Somalis. What science needs (if an abstraction such as science can be said to need anything) is scientists. If they happen also to be foot fetishists, pole-vaulters, or Somalis, so be it: but no one in his right mind would go to any lengths to recruit for his laboratory foot fetishists, pole-vaulters, or Somalis for those characteristics alone.”

Analysis

The author of the posters probably had wanted to propose “The people who hire scientists should hire more women,” but feared that this candid wording could make his proposition sound like the subjective opinion of a social meddler. So he tarted up his proposition to sound like an axiom: “Science needs women.”

Of course, the proposition “Science needs women” is nothing more than a specific instance of the general proposition “Science needs scientists who have certain traits irrelevant to the work of scientists.” In his comment, Mr. Dalrymple disproves this general proposition by citing three laughably irrelevant traits: having a certain sexual fetish, participating in a certain sport, and being a member of a certain ethnic group.

The Takeaway: Reductio ad absurdum is a familiar way to disprove a proposition. It is effective (persuasive) and efficient (requiring few words).

See disclaimer.

A clear piece of political writing (2)

The mayor of Seattle signs the city's minimum-wage ordinance.

Most people who write about politics use too many arcane words, long sentences, circumlocutions, and uninhabited clauses. They don’t use enough concrete examples. Usually they are careless with their sentence structure, the organization of their paragraphs, and the flow of their entire text. These vices make their writing difficult to read and understand.

Today I show you a nice exception: a brief political news item that is well written, readable and clear: “Labor Supporters Hail Seattle’s Landmark $15/hour wage,” written by Matthew Rothschild and published in The Progressive.

Mr. Rothschild has many virtues, as demonstrated in this news item. He uses a good mix of short and long sentences. His sentence structure and flow are good. He writes in a straightforward manner. The quotations are good. It is a smooth piece of political writing – smooth in the good sense, meaning that the reader glides right through it. (By the way, if you are a beginning writer, be aware that all this is harder than it looks.)

For the record, the article is 379 words long and merits a very good Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score of 56.0, slightly more readable than Time magazine. Some details: words per sentence, 18.0; characters per word, 4.7; passive sentences, 4%.

I do not know or care whether the article is accurate or inaccurate, or even whether it is honest or dishonest; I am interested in the article only as an example of relatively clear writing.

The Takeaway: Whatever your opinions on the minimum wage, progressive politics or Seattle may be, temporarily turn off the political part of your mind (important) and just the read the article for its diction. If you have the time, read it twice. This kind of exercise helps you improve your writing.

See disclaimer.

A clear piece of political writing

I select many of my examples of unclear writing from political writing. Here’s why:

Most political writers prefer long words to short words, arcane words to common words, long sentences to short sentences, and circumlocutions to straightforward language. They also favor passive voice to active voice, uninhabited clauses to inhabited clauses, and abstract examples (or no examples) to concrete examples. Usually they are careless with their sentence structure, the organization of their paragraphs, and the flow of their entire text.

These vices make their writing difficult to read and understand.

Today I show you the opposite: a political article that is relatively easy to read and understand: “Just Another Narrative About Privilege,” by Rosslyn Smith. She has not done a perfect job (who does?) but she has taken pains to make her article readable and clear.

For the record, the article is 1,001 words long and its Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score is 44.9, which is approximately as readable as The Wall Street Journal.

I do not know or care whether the article is accurate or inaccurate, or even whether it is honest or dishonest; I am interested in the article only as an example of fairly good writing.

The Takeaway: Whatever your opinions on class and politics may be, temporarily turn off the political part of your mind (important) and just the read the article for its diction. If you have the time, read it twice. This kind of exercise helps you improve your writing.

See disclaimer.

The uninhabited clause (21)

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause that has a non-human subject: a thing or an idea, as opposed to a person or group of persons. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses, but when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers. They prefer reading about people to reading about things or ideas.

Example

Deborah C. Tyler begins her article “Real Crime vs. Vicious Identity” with these four paragraphs:

“Since the beginning of the 20th century, advances in science and technology have enabled the most cruel and irrational debris produced by the human mind to be concentrated into the ideological footings of modern totalitarianism.  Totalitarianism politicizes every aspect of life: family, religion, education, and culture.  As Benito Mussolini exulted, ‘[e]verything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.’

“Worldwide movements to create transnational socialist ‘new world orders’ have been carried out under the banners of communism and Nazism.  We are now living through the Obama administration's efforts to transform the constitutionally founded and legally bordered nation-state, the United States of America, into a socialist totalitarian cog in a new world order.

“In claiming absolute power and promulgating narratives of intra-national enmity, totalitarian regimes have a history of justifying ideologically driven mass murder of noncombatants.  Thus far, the mass murder justified by American totalitarianism obtains in its single-minded emphasis regarding the necessity and righteousness of eliminating many of the unborn.

“The pivotal psychological dynamic of totalitarianism is a reorientation of moral and psychosocial attribution of guilt and culpability.  The psychology of totalitarianism provides the term ‘real enmity’ to mean being an enemy of society based on voluntary, legally transgressive behavior – i.e., being found guilty of committing a voluntary criminal action.  ‘Objective enmity’ occurs when a member of a governmentally non-preferred group is deemed an enemy of society because he is suspected of thinking unacceptable thoughts or holding unacceptable views.” (Boldface added.) (Source)

Analysis

The professors take an interesting topic – wealth – and makes it sound academic and boring. She uses eight uninhabited clauses:

advances have enabled
Totalitarianism politicizes
movements have been carried out
regimes have
murder obtains
dynamic is
psychology provides
enmity occurs

And only four inhabited clauses:

Benito Mussolini exulted
We are now living through
member is deemed
he is suspected

And in two of those four inhabited clauses (“member is deemed” and “he is suspected”) she has put the verbs in passive voice. Therefore, only two out of twelve clauses describe people doing something.

When we use a lot of of uninhabited clauses, we are in effect telling our readers: “Nothing’s happening here. Stop reading this. Go read a graphic novel.”

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.

Note: For comparison, my portion of the text in this post includes six uninhabited and fourteen inhabited clauses, and I have used no passive voice.

_____________________
*My coinage, so far as I know.

See disclaimer.

A soldier who wrote like a professor

Most professors write exhausting prose. They exhaust their readers by continually forcing them to decode circumlocutions, euphemisms, evasions, ambiguities, misplaced modifiers, vague antecedents, and logical fallacies. They make the readers endure passive voice, elegant variation, and sheer nonsense. They make the readers slog through long sentences.

But professors are not the only vexers. Many non-professors exhaust their readers, too. Consider, for example, the British soldier Frederick J. Veale (pictured), who died in 1976. In his revisionist history Advance to Barbarism, Veale claims that the Allies thought up the idea of deliberately bombing civilians and the Axis merely followed suit. But after enticing his readers with this provocative thesis, Veale exhausts them with prose like this:

“It would not indeed be correct to say that what was officially termed ‘the strategic bombing offensive’ was carried out to the last day of the war without opposition, protest or misgivings. Questions were asked in Parliament as to the character of this air offensive which were fully reported in the Press with the answers given. Certainly it cannot be said that the Ministers of the Crown upon whom fell the duty of answering these questions, resorted to evasion or equivocation.

“In accordance with the British tradition they kept a stiff upper lip and gave clear and emphatic replies, without any signs of embarrassment such as might have been expected from them having regard to the fact that as recently as March 1942 Mr. Churchill’s War Cabinet had accepted the plan laid before it by Professor Lindemann by which ‘top priority’ as an objective for air attack was in future to be given to ‘working-class houses in densely populated residential areas.’ ” (161 words)

Analysis

There are many things wrong with these two consecutive paragraphs; for the sake of brevity, I’ll just hit the highlights:

Long sentences (average 40.2 words).

Passive voice; for example: “Questions were asked in Parliament as to the character of this air offensive which were fully reported in the Press with the answers given.” (Boldface added.)

An egregious, grotesque circumlocution: “...such as might have been expected from them having regard to the fact that as recently as March 1942 Mr. Churchill’s War Cabinet had accepted the plan laid before it by Professor Lindemann by which ‘top priority’ as an objective for air attack was in future to be given to ‘working-class houses in densely populated residential areas.’ ” 

A suggested rewrite

In just over three minutes, I did this rough rewrite:

Several government officials opposed, protested or at least questioned “the strategic bombing offensive.” For example, Members of Parliament asked the Ministers questions about the character of the offensive. The Ministers answered clearly and emphatically, and the press fully reported both the questions and the answers. The Ministers did not appear to be embarrassed that the War Cabinet had decided to deliberately bomb “working-class houses in densely populated residential areas.” (68 words)

My rewrite is 58 percent shorter than the original, and it is much easier to follow. (Note: I felt it was fair to delete the mention of Professor Lindemann, because two paragraphs later a quotation describes the professor’s role in the offensive.)

The Takeaway: Try not to fall into the bad habits of the typical professor. As you edit your drafts, watch for circumlocutions, euphemisms, evasions, ambiguities, misplaced modifiers, vague antecedents, logical fallacies, passive voice, elegant variation, and sheer nonsense. Keep your sentences mostly short; vary the sentence length. And always check your prose for readability; if your Flesch Reading Ease score is consistently below 30, you probably are writing like a professor. Ask a capable editor to look at samples of your work and advise you on how to break your bad habits.

See disclaimer.

The uninhabited clause (20)

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause that has a non-human subject. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses, but when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers. They want to read about people.

Example

Here are the first two paragraphs of an article titled “Acquittal – and Denial – at Dartmouth,” by KC Johnson:

“It seems as if periods emerge where sexual assault issues tend to focus on a single university. Even in the aftermath of the lacrosse case, attention remained on Duke – in part because of the civil suits, in part because the university, rather than learning from its mistakes, adopted a new policy that could brand a student a rapist based on ‘perceived power differentials’ that can create ‘an unintentional atmosphere of coercion.’

“Then the focus turned to Yale – in part because of the university’s mishandling of the Patrick Witt case (still no word on any investigation of who breached confidentiality at the school), and then because of the Orwellian definitions of sexual assault (‘economic abuse’ as intimate partner violence) offered in the university’s periodic sexual assault report documents.”

Analysis

Only one of the clauses is inhabited:

who breached

The other ten clauses are uninhabited:

It seems
periods emerge
issues tend
attention remained
university adopted
that (antecedent = policy) could brand
that (antecedent = differentials) can create
focus turned
word is (the context implies the verb is)
that (implied; antecedent = definitions) were (implied) offered

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.

The uninhabited clause (19)

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause with a physical or conceptual subject, as opposed to a human subject. For example, “New York” is a physical subject, “assertiveness” is a conceptual subject, and “Donald Trump” is a human subject. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses. But when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers. They want to read about people.

Here are the first four paragraphs of an article titled “Overuse and Abuse of Adjunct Faculty Members Threaten Core Academic Values,” by Richard Moser:

The increasing exploitation of contingent faculty members is one dimension of an employment strategy sometimes called the “two-tiered” or “multitiered” labor system.

This new labor system is firmly established in higher education and constitutes a threat to the teaching profession. If left unchecked, it will undermine the university's status as an institution of higher learning because the overuse of adjuncts and their lowly status and compensation institutionalize disincentives to quality education, threaten academic freedom and shared governance, and disqualify the campus as an exemplar of democratic values. These developments in academic labor are the most troubling expressions of the so-called corporatization of higher education.

“Corporatization” is the name sometimes given to what has happened to higher education over the last 30 years. Corporatization is the reorganization of our great national resources, including higher education, in accordance with a shortsighted business model. Three decades of decline in public funding for higher education opened the door for increasing corporate influence, and since then the work of the university has been redirected to suit the corporate vision.

The most striking symptoms of corporatization shift costs and risks downward and direct capital and authority upward. Rising tuition and debt loads for students limit access to education for working-class students. The faculty and many other campus workers suffer lower compensation as the number of managers, and their pay, rises sharply. Campus management concentrates resources on areas where wealth is created, and new ideas and technologies developed at public cost become the entitlement of the corporate sector. The privatization and outsourcing of university functions and jobs from food service to bookstores to instruction enrich a few businessmen and create more low-wage nonunion jobs. Increasingly authoritarian governance practices have become the “new normal.”

Don’t be embarrassed if you nodded off. It is soporific text. The author has heavily used uninhabited clauses:

exploitation is
strategy is (implied) called
system is established
system constitutes
it (implied) is (implied) left
it will undermine
overuse, status and compensation institutionalize
overuse, status and compensation threaten
overuse, status and compensation disqualify
developments are
“corporatization” is
that (implied) is (implied) given
what has happened
corporatization is reorganization
decades opened
work has been redirected
symptoms shift
symptoms direct
tuition and loads limit
faculty and workers suffer
number and pay rises (sic for rise)
management concentrates resources
wealth is created
ideas and technologies become
that were (implied) developed
privatization and outsourcing enrich
privatization and outsourcing create
practices have become

Only two of these clauses are inhabited:

faculty and workers suffer
management concentrates resources

The other 26 clauses are uninhabited; all the subjects are conceptual. The rest of the article is the same: almost every clause has a conceptual subject.

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 may sound academic and boring.

_____________________
*My coinage, so far as I know.

See disclaimer.

The uninhabited clause (18)

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause with a physical or conceptual subject, as opposed to a human subject. For example, “New York” is a physical subject, “assertiveness” is a conceptual subject, and “Donald Trump” is a human subject. There is nothing inherently wrong with using Uninhabited Clauses. But when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers. They want to read about people.

Example

Here are the first three paragraphs of an article titled “Keep the scourge of scientism out of schools,” by sociologist, commentator and author Frank Furedi, who published the article on his website:

At a time when society finds it hard to provide compelling answers to the problems that people face, the realm of science is being plundered in search of moral authority. The exhaustion of the old taken-for-granted ideals, values and ideologies has led to a search for new ways for validating views and opinions. Instead of trying to give meaning to the problems we face through reflection and debate, governments now embrace science as the unique source of truth.

This is giving rise to ‘policy-led science’ - that is, science that has a tendency to mould itself around the needs of policymakers. This strengthens the dogma of scientism, which aims to spread scientific discourse into our personal, cultural and social experiences, where actually other modes of non-scientific reflection are really needed. This is why, today, we have everything from the ‘science of parenting’ to the ‘science of happiness’ and the ‘science of the spiritual life’.

Scientism is now used to legitimate various policies and claims made by all sorts of institutions. Consequently, evidence, or rather evidence-based policy, which enjoys the authority of science, dominates the modern political landscape. Today, policies are judged not on the grounds of whether they are good or bad, but on the question of whether they are evidence-based.

Analysis

The three paragraphs contain 15 Uninhabited Clauses:

realm is being plundered
exhaustion has led
This is giving
that has
This strengthens
which aims
modes are needed
This is
Scientism is used
evidence dominates
policy dominates
which enjoys
policies are judged
they are
they are

And only five Inhabited Clauses:

society finds
people face
we face
governments embrace
we have

That’s 75 percent Uninhabited Clauses in the first three paragraphs. Later in the article, it gets worse: it rises to 88 percent.

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 may sound academic and boring.

_____________________
*My coinage, so far as I know.

See disclaimer.

Circumlocution (2)

A circumlocution is a roundabout expression. Circumlocution is the use of such expressions. Circumlocution confuses readers and listeners and wastes their time.

An egregious example of circumlocution

In the Washington Times, an article about combat training quotes Congresswoman Niki Tsongas:

“To put in place a training regimen that is ill-suited to maximizing the success of women is not really the outcome any of us want to see.”

This obese sentence is a circumlocution built up of several circumlocutions. We can replace this obese sentence with a trim, clear sentence by replacing the component circumlocutions with straightforward English. Here we go:

Let’s replace “to put in place” with nothing.

Let’s replace “a training regimen” with “training.”

Let’s replace “that is ill-suited to maximizing the success of women” with “that helps women excel.” This replacement also converts a negative to a positive.

Let’s replace “is not really the outcome any of us want to see” with “we want.” This replacement also converts a negative to a positive.

And we end up with this:

“We want training that helps women excel.”

Original: 27 words
My Rewrite: 7 words
Reduction: 74 percent

Making this kind of improvement takes little time; my rewrite took me only 40 seconds.

The Takeaway: The more you rely on circumlocution, the flabbier your brain gets. Use circumlocutions sparingly if at all.

See disclaimer.

The uninhabited clause (17)

The Uninhabited Clause* is a clause with a physical or conceptual subject, as opposed to a human subject. For example, “New York” is a physical subject, “assertiveness” is a conceptual subject, and “New Yorkers” is a human subject. There is nothing inherently wrong with using Uninhabited Clauses. But when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers. They want to read about people.

Example

Here’s the opening paragraph of a Boston Globe article titled “The broken dialogue on men’s rights,” by Cathy Young:

Never mind the “war on women:” According to growing numbers of bloggers, activists, and authors – some of them women – it’s males in modern Western society who are under siege and whose rights need defending. Is this the next frontier for gender justice, or a woman-hating backlash? Men’s advocacy raises important and worthy issues that often draw unfair ridicule. Unfortunately, it is also prone to toxic rhetoric that subverts its valid points and alienates potential supporters.

Analysis

The author uses two human subjects:

you (implied) mind
who are

And eight non-human subjects:

it is
rights need
this is
advocacy raises
that draw
it is
that subverts
that alienates

By so frequently hiding the people, she takes a lively topic – “the war of the sexes” – and makes it sound a little dull. (To be fair, I hasten to add that in later paragraphs she uses human subjects more frequently.)

A livelier version

By putting in more people, she could have made the opening paragraph livelier. For example:

Never mind the “war on women:” More and more bloggers, activists, and authors – including women – are saying that in modern Western society males are the people who are under siege and who need their rights defended. Is this the next frontier for gender justice, or a woman-hating backlash? Men’s rights activists raise important and worthy issues and often draw unfair ridicule. Unfortunately, they sometimes use toxic rhetoric that subverts their valid points and alienates potential supporters.

This version contains ten human subjects:

you (implied) mind
Bloggers are saying
activists are saying
authors are saying
males are
who are
who need
activists raise
activists draw
they use

And three non-human subjects:

this is
that subverts
that alienates

The rewrite took me 1 minute and 25 seconds.

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 may sound academic and boring.

See disclaimer.

*My coinage, so far as I know.

The uninhabited clause (16)

On this blog, I have often discussed the uninhabited clause* – a clause with a subject that is a physical thing or a concept, as opposed to a person or group of persons. For example, “Saturn is a planet” is an uninhabited clause. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses. But when we use a lot of them, we bore and exhaust our readers.

Example

Recently Abbie Bakan delivered a stultifying speech consisting almost entirely of uninhabited clauses. For example, here are Ms. Bakan’s first five paragraphs:

MARXISM IS, of course, an extremely useful frame for explaining the nature and limits of present-day global capitalism and imperialism. At its best, creative Marxism offers a realistic strategy for envisioning a new world of human freedom.

But there is a strand of Marxism that, in its relationship to feminism, is troubling, and merits close analysis and theorization. I want to suggest a very simple argument--that the theoretical claim that there is grounds for a coherent Marxist approach that is for "women's liberation," while against "feminism," makes no sense. It is unclear and unhelpful.

A strand of Marxism, what could be termed Marxist Anti-Feminism (or MAF), has diminished the contributions of feminism in such a way that distorts, rather than advances, historical materialist analysis. In so doing, MAF hampers our understanding of both women's liberation and Marxism.

Alternatively, as Marxists, we would be better served to start from a position that looks at feminism as a positive--if diverse--contribution to an emancipatory project. From this perspective, we can build a constructive and creative dialogue between and within Marxism (or, more accurately, Marxisms), and feminism (or, again more accurately, feminisms).

At best, a Marxist theoretical starting point that rejects feminism is confusing. The risks of confusion are paralysis and divisiveness, creating an unnecessary chasm among like-minded activists and scholars.

Analysis

Ms. Bakan selected non-human subjects 18 times:

Marxism is
Marxism offers
strand is
that is
that merits
argument makes
claim makes
grounds is [sic for are]
that is
It is
strand has diminished
that distorts
that advances
MAF hampers
that looks at
point is
that rejects
risks are

And human subjects only 3 times:

I want
we would be served
we can build

A livelier version

By putting in more people, Ms. Bakan could have made her speech more lively and powerful. For example, here is how the first paragraph might read:

I am sure you know that Marxism has been extremely useful to us. We have used it to explain the nature and limits of present-day global capitalism and imperialism. Many of you have done that and are doing that. And you probably also know that we can go even farther. We can use creative Marxism to build a realistic strategy – a strategy for envisioning a new world of human freedom.

This version of the first paragraph contains eight personal pronouns. Ms. Bakan’s version contained none.

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 will sound academic and boring. Intelligent readers will notice that you have worked hard to undermine your own points. At best, they will ignore you. At worst, they will distrust you.**

See disclaimer.

*My coinage, so far as I know.

**I would be afraid to do business with anyone who writes this way – unless he were hiring me to improve his writing. Even then, I would ask for payment in advance.

Helen Sword on “zombie nouns”

In several posts (for example, here), I have discussed the uninhabited clause,* a clause with a non-human subject. For example, “Saturn is a planet” is an uninhabited clause. If you overuse uninhabited clauses, you will tire your readers. To stay interested, most readers need to see a human subject once in a while.

In an excellent piece in The New York Times, Helen Sword (pictured) describes an extremely tiring form of non-human subject: the zombie noun.

“Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them; so do lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers. I call them “zombie nouns” because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings...”

The Takeaway: Learn how to avoid using “zombie nouns.” Read the article here.

See disclaimer.

*My coinage, so far as I know.

Don’t bury an action request

In an email, letter, or memo, there is a wrong place and a right place to request action.

The wrong place to request action

A few weeks ago, somebody in my doctor’s office mailed me a form letter that described some change in the way Medicare does something or other. The letter didn’t sound like my doctor; he is smart and highly efficient. No, the letter sounded more like a government bureaucrat; Medicare probably wrote the letter and then made my doctor send it to his patients.

As Joe Roy, confident medical patient, I was inclined to drop the letter into my wastebasket, figuring that my doctor knows how to deal with Medicare without any amateur assistance from me. But as Mr. Clarity, I’m always on the prowl for illustrative examples of bad writing, so I read the whole letter.

Compared to most government writing, the letter wasn’t too bad. But halfway down Page 2 was an unpardonable sin. An action request was buried in the text. It seems that unless I called a certain 800 number by a certain date, Medicare was going to do something to my medical records.

I’ll bet you not one patient in ten read that far.

The right place to request action

To make sure your reader sees your action request, type it above the main text.

The Takeaway: Readers do not expect to have to slog through 500 or 1,000 words of circumlocution to find out what the blazes you want from them. Type your action request above the main text.

A point about politeness: When I was chief editor at Honeywell Information Systems, I learned that many managers, with the good intention of not wanting to seem “abrupt” or “pushy,” bury their action requests intentionally. They sincerely believe that’s the polite way. Unfortunately, it ends up being impolite; in our fast-paced world, most readers would rather read a directly (but not rudely) stated request at the beginning than risk overlooking a request buried in the text.

The uninhabited clause (15)

On this blog, I have often discussed the uninhabited clause* – a clause with a subject that is a physical thing or a concept, as opposed to a person or group of persons. For example, “Saturn is a planet” is an uninhabited clause. There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses. But when we use a lot of them, we exhaust and irritate our readers.

Example

Here are the first three paragraphs of an essay titled, “Sweden: empire of governance feminism,” which appeared on the web site “A Voice for Men.” I have put the subjects of clauses in boldface.

For many of us the extremist brand of gender feminism that has permeated Swedish culture and politics came acutely into focus last year. The [fictional] YouTube video of a group of female students murdering a man reading a newspaper and their ecstatic post murder dance celebrations, revealing that exposure to and advocacy of male genderocide, [sic comma] is an accepted part of the Swedish education systems [sic for system’s] indoctrination of their [sic for its] youth, [missing copy?] “do your part.”

Letters to Australian [sic] parliamentarians including the then Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd asking for our government to expresses [sic for express] diplomatic alarm at such vilification on the basis of sex, [sic comma] fell on deaf ears [sic comical mixed metaphor]. An AVFM commentator provided a link to the Swedish documentary (with English subtitles) “The Gender War” (Könskriget) by journalist Evin Rubar, which is highly recommended viewing for anyone who has not yet seen it and interested in the truth about Swedish feminism.

The most disturbing aspect of this documentary is the confirmation that the central tenants [sic for tenets] of radical feminism have been accepted in Sweden as core political orthodoxy and all aspects of legislation and government services must adhere to it’s [sic for its] “gender correct” understanding of male dominance and oppression. (I have deleted the footnotes from this passage.)

Analysis

I’m sure you can feel it. For some reason, the writer has gone out of his way to make a highly controversial topic (advocacy of murder) sound boring. He selected non-human subjects 9 out of 13 times:

brand came
that has permeated
video [the author omitted the verb]
exposure is
advocacy is
you [the pronoun is implied by the imperative mood of the verb] do

Letters fell
commentator provided
which is
who has not yet seen; is [the verb is implied] interested

aspect is
tenants have been accepted
aspects must adhere

A livelier version

By putting in more people, the writer could easily have done justice to his topic and made his essay more lively and powerful. For example, here is how the first paragraph might read:

Last year, in a fictional video, a Swedish woman murdered a man in cold blood and her friends celebrated the murder by dancing in ecstasy – illustrating how feminist women have corrupted Swedish culture and politics with their violent “gender feminism.” Even Swedish schoolteachers are advocating the murder of men.

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 will sound academic and boring. Intelligent readers will notice that you have worked hard to undermine your own points. At best, they will ignore you. At worst, they will distrust you.**

See disclaimer.

*My coinage, so far as I know.

**I would be afraid to do business with a man who writes this way – unless he were hiring me to improve his writing. Even then, I would ask for payment in advance.

The uninhabited clause (14)

On this blog, I have often discussed the uninhabited clause* – a clause with a subject that is a physical thing or a concept, as opposed to a person or group of persons. For example, “Saturn is a planet” is an uninhabited clause (and a full sentence).

There is nothing inherently wrong with using uninhabited clauses. But when we use a lot of them, we tire and irritate our readers. And when we use them in utilitarian documents, we often sound silly.

For example, some pompous fool at the Payson (Utah) Junior High School wrote this sentence in the school’s list of rules (coyly called “General Information,” by the way):

“Outside drinks are not permitted to be brought into the school.”

Analysis

The writer has created an unintentionally comical sentence. It is a command addressed to inanimate objects, not students. It suggests this image: A student is carrying a can of Red Bull in his backpack. As he approaches the front door of the school, the can shouts through the fabric, “Stop! Put me down right here! I’m not supposed to let anyone carry me into the school! It says so in the General Information on the web site.”

It would have been so easy, and so natural, for the writer to write:

“Don’t bring outside drinks into the school.”

The subject of the clause (which constitutes the entire sentence) is the personal pronoun “you,” which is implied by the imperative mood of the verb “bring.”

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.

See disclaimer.

*My coinage, so far as I know.

A movie scene about circumlocution

In the motion picture Love and Death on Long Island (1997), Giles De’Ath (John Hurt) is riding in a London taxicab and smoking a cigarette. The driver notices the smoke and says, “No smoking, guv, thanks very much.”

Giles says, “I beg your pardon?”

Indicating a sign in the front of the taxicab, the driver replies, “It says, ‘No smoking.’ ”

Giles reads the sign and says patiently, “No, it says, ‘Thank you for not smoking.’ As I am smoking, I don’t expect to be thanked.” He continues to smoke.

The Takeaway: You have the right to use circumlocutions. Your readers have the right to interpret them literally.

Update, Saturday, February 11, 2012: I am grateful to Cheryl Stephens for pointing out that the above Takeaway is itself circumlocutory. I hereby add:

When writing instructions, signs and other utilitarian matter, avoid circumlocution.

See disclaimer.