Random thoughts (8)

The downside of freedom of expression

The columnist Theodore Dalrymple,* a retired psychiatrist, on freedom of expression: “When my patients used to complain to me of their f…..g headache, I used to ask them to explain to me the difference between a headache and a f…..g headache. They couldn’t; and in fact, complete freedom of expression has led to an impoverishment of expression, because one doesn’t need to think of alternatives to the first expletive that comes into one’s mind – or is it one’s f…..g mind?” (Source)

Nouns as adjectives

Using nouns as adjectives is useful, but sometimes it’s confusing. For example, “freedom fighters” (presumably) fight for freedom. But “crime fighters” (presumably) fight against crime.

Terms that writers should not use flippantly, but do

“Good intentions.” When a writer assumes a person had good intentions, the writer never specifies (1) what he assumes the intentions were; or (2) why he assumed those intentions; or (3) under which moral philosophy the intentions would be considered good; or (4) why they would be considered good. If a writer is not willing to state (or even hint at) all of this, he is flimflamming the reader.**

“The equation.” (Examples here.) Writers who like to refer to “the equation” (and they are legion) never specify what the equation is. To me, this practice usually sounds like insinuation or evasion; that is to say, the writer is trying to get away with something.

“Sustainability” and “Diversity.” Writers usually refer to these states as if they were self-evidently desirable. However, their desirability is bitterly disputed. Moreover, neither word even has a tidy, universally agreed-upon definition; for example, the Wikipedia definition of sustainability, which valiantly attempts (but fails) to include all the disagreements, is a whopping 755 words long. On cultural diversity alone (one of several kinds of diversity), Wiki spends nearly 4,000 words. On the related concept of multiculturalism, Wiki spends more than 7,000.

Life parodies itself

I just learned – but can hardly believe – that the current White House Press Secretary is a fellow named Josh Earnest. The name sounds like someone made it up after hearing the old gag by George Burns: “Sincerity – if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” By the way, I see that Mr. Earnest succeeded a Mr. Carney. If a writer used these names in the manuscript of a satirical novel, his editor would probably rule them too heavy-handed and corny.

Is this too much to ask?

For about 15 years, I’ve been looking for a software application that can directly convert an internet article into a Microsoft Word document. Just the body copy: no photos, drawings, graphs, captions, pull quotes, ads or sidebars. Just so I can easily read the article. Can anyone help me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

___________________
*Among his many distinctions as a writer, Mr. Dalrymple remembers that the past participle of the verb to lead is led not lead. (Look it up here.)

**And I’m sure you’ve noticed that writers invoke “good intentions” only when the person’s action or lack of actions caused a disaster or failed to prevent a disaster. And only when the writer has the same political leanings as the person. In other words, it is prejudice.

The Takeaway: Be here now.

See disclaimer.

Random thoughts (7)

Using your arm or hand as a map: I spent most of my life in Massachusetts, and on a few occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, I observed a Cape Cod resident use his left arm as an improvised map of the cape and then use his right forefinger to point out a location on that “map.” Because Michigan looks very much like a hand (or mitten), I wondered if Michiganders did something similar. I forgot about that until 1994, when I traveled to Kellogg Company (Battle Creek, Michigan), to accept a speechwriting assignment. When my client wanted to point out the location of a city, sure enough he held up his right hand as a map of Michigan.* These two actions have a certain down-home charm.

Words that are older than we think: We tend to think that words and phrases, except for the more common ones, were recently coined. We are often wrong, by decades or even centuries. For example, last Thursday I mentioned that word of mouth has been used since 1553. Another example is OMG. You might be willing to bet that it was coined in the 1970s by histrionic teenage girls, but a slide show in Dictionary.com says “The first citation of OMG in the Oxford English Dictionary appears in a 1917 letter from the British admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher to Winston Churchill.” The slide show discusses seven other surprisingly old words; take a look.

This trope must drive psychologists insane: There’s a movie trope about mental problems that goes like this; a patient has a deeply buried mental problem and won’t admit it. The psychologist eventually persuades the patient to cry. As soon as the patient cries, he is completely cured or almost completely cured. A well-known example is the “It’s not your fault” scene in Good Will Hunting. Because this trope reduces psychology to a trick, it implies that psychology is vastly overpriced.

Writing as depicted in the movies: Being a professional writer, I naturally notice when a movie shows a writer writing. But as I’m sure you know, such scenes are rarely shown. And when they are shown, the writer is writing a first draft, not a revision (revisions are where real-life writers spend most of their time). Example: In Citizen Kane, newspaperman Charles Foster Kane writes one draft of a manifesto for his paper and runs it on Page 1 without further revision. An exception that proves the rule: In How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the protagonist is discovered asleep at his desk on Saturday morning; crumpled papers suggest that he has been writing draft after draft all night. But the protagonist has contrived the scene in order to impress his boss. So I am not surprised that, whenever I’ve said that speech writers often write more than 20 drafts of a speech, non-writers have stared (or laughed) at me in disbelief. Fiction trumps reality.

To open… When I was in grammar school, I heard this lame joke: “Why did the two bugs run a race on the cracker box? Because the box said ‘Tear along the dotted line.’ ” But in recalling it recently, I realized that fewer packages today display any directions for opening them. Some of the packages are like dexterity tests. As the U.S. population ages, you would think manufacturers would have more, not less, empathy for their customers, more and more of whom are becoming arthritic.

The Takeaway: Be here now.
________________________
*Another charming geographic anecdote about Michigan: When I landed at the nearest airport to Battle Creek, I saw a sign that read “Yes, there really is a place called Kalamazoo.”

See disclaimer.

Don't let narcissistic writing make you look foolish

Because we see so much narcissistic writing today, we can easily slip into narcissistic writing ourselves. If you don’t keep narcissism under control, it can embarrass your readers, your listeners and you. In earlier posts, I gave two egregious examples of narcissistic writing:

The first example was from a blogger who interviewed Tom Peters and then, in her blog post, wasted more than half her words writing about herself instead of Mr. Peters.

The second example was from a college professor who, while introducing Stephen King as a guest speaker, spent more than one-third of the introduction talking about herself instead of Mr. King.

Now here’s a third example:

In 2012, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a eulogy at the funeral of Daniel Inouye. Mr. Inouye was a highly decorated U.S. Army veteran and “one of the longest serving U.S. Senators in history, second only to Robert Byrd.” (Source)

Mr. Obama spent a lot of words talking about himself instead of Mr. Inouye. Reporters cringed; some complained publicly. For example:

In Slate, Emily Yoffe wrote:

“Obama likes to see events through the lens of his own life’s chronology. Thus we learn that Inouye was elected to the Senate when Obama was 2 years old. Now you could make this relevant by describing how Inouye worked to send federal dollars (you don’t have to call it ‘pork’ at a funeral) to transform Hawaii’s roads and schools, for example, so that the Hawaii Obama grew up in had the kind of facilities people on the mainland had long taken for granted. But no, we simply learn that Inouye was Obama’s senator until he left the state to go to college – something apparently more momentous than anything Inouye did during his decades in office.”

In The Weekly Standard, Daniel Halper wrote:

“President Barack Obama used the funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye to talk about himself. In the short 1,600 word speech, Obama used the word ‘my’ 21 times, ‘me’ 12 times, and ‘I’ 30 times.”

In Taki’s Magazine, Steve Sailer, who called Mr. Obama “a middle-aged bore about his past,” wrote:

“…the subject Obama finds most enthralling is Obama. For example, Obama’s 2012 eulogy for Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the Japanese-American war hero, used 48 first person pronouns or adjectives (such as ‘I,’ ‘me,’ or ‘my’) to recount how the young Obama had noticed Inouye on TV.”

The Takeaway: Don’t let childish, narcissistic writing make you look foolish. Don’t distort the piece to squeeze yourself in. Refer to yourself only if you are a natural, relevant part of what you are writing. This rule is especially important when you are writing specifically about one person; for example, an introduction, an interview or a eulogy.

See disclaimer.

Shown: A section of Echo and Narcissus, by John William Waterhouse, 1903. In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a hunter who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool.

Concise writing is usually clear writing (38) – Aaron Clarey

In Chapter 1 of Bachelor Pad Economics, a guide for young men as they leave their parents’ homes and set up their own quarters, Aaron Clarey warns his readers that their elders have told them some pernicious lies:

For example, about college:

“The lies you were fed were that you could ‘follow your heart and the money would follow’ or that ‘it doesn’t matter what you major in, it’s what you do with the degree that matters.’ As long as you went to college, racked up $100,000 in debt, you were doing ‘the right thing.’ Of course, working for $8/hour as a barista to pay off your student loans for your ‘Art History’ degree has taught you otherwise.” (76 words)

For example, about girls and dating:

“There is not one young man alive today who has not suffered immeasurably because of the lies he was told about girls and dating. The ‘wisdom’ his elders gave him was ‘to be the nice guy’ or ‘be a caring, sensitive man.’ Only to find out the drug dealing thug or the philandering athlete was getting all the girls. It wasn’t until hundreds of men compiled notes [via the Internet] and realized the advice they were being given the past 40 years was completely wrong, and set out to rediscover the truth about women. Women like tall, strong, aloof, confident a**holes who ignore them and treat them like sh*t.” (105 words)

Analysis

I don’t know whether you agreed or disagreed with those two opinions, but I’m sure you easily understood what the opinions are. Mr. Clarey states them clearly, using only 76 words and 105 words, respectively. In contrast, the typical Fortune 500 CEO couldn’t be that clear and concise if his life depended on it.*

Please keep in mind that this is a blog about clear writing, not about opinions. When I select text samples for this blog, it is because the writing is especially clear (or especially unclear). I quote people who I disdain, people who I admire, and everything in between.

The Takeaway: To improve the clarity of your writing, spend at least 10 minutes a day reading aloud from writers who write clearly. You will see, hear and feel the stark contrast between careful diction and the scatterbrain diction (sample here) that besets us every day. The topic you select for your reading doesn’t matter, because you’re reading for style not content. If you would like a list of recommended writers and works, please email me at joeroy(at)joeroy(dot)com. Ask for my “List of Writers to Absorb.” I will respond via email.
___________________
*Not even if he had the help of an experienced speech writer or corporate writer. Unfortunately, many writers today are as bland, boring, effete and evasive as their CEOs. And even when the writers are not, the CEOs often muck up the writers’drafts. Most CEOs want to avoid being clear, concise, direct and unequivocal. They think and write like shyster lawyers, not like leaders. Do not imitate their language.

See disclaimer.

Random thoughts (6)

A Subaru Forester

When the spell-checker in Microsoft Word detects no errors, it tells me “You’re good to go!” I am offended by this puerile, presumptuous language. On the other hand, I realize that the fellow who wrote it may be retarded; if so, it wouldn’t be fair of me to judge him by normal grown-up standards. On the other other hand,* why does Microsoft allow such employees to communicate with customers? Of course, it could have been worse; it could have been “Your good to go!”

Where I live and work (Meredith, New Hampshire), a portion of the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee is historically known as “Church Landing.” A local developer bought Church Landing and built a beautiful but very pricey inn on it. Confusingly, he named the inn “Church Landing” and the inn’s restaurant “The Lakehouse Grille.” It seems to me that the inn would more logically have been named “The Lakehouse on Church Landing.” Or maybe there’s something here that I am misinterpreting.**

Two years ago, on the advice of my doctor, I set out to lose 90 pounds. After I had lost the first 30 or 40, people started asking me, “How did you do it?” When I told them the simple truth, “I ate less,” they typically let out a nervous laugh and then asked, “No, really, how did you do it?” Apparently my candid answer was unwittingly embarrassing people by reminding them that they had allowed themselves to be distracted by the $20-billion-dollars-a-year weight-loss industry, whose aggregate message seems to be, “You can’t lose weight just by eating less. Trust us. Our book / plan / group / seminar / pill /surgery is the way.” So nowadays when people ask how I lost weight, I say either “I don’t remember” or “I think it may be cancer.” They seem to be more satisfied with these obvious lies than with the simple truth. I give them what they want and they leave me alone, which is what I want.

On a recent flight from Boston to Miami, I noticed that the airline boarded us coach passengers by groups. Good method, except they do it backwards: They board from fore to aft (front to rear). In other words, Group 1 boards first, in the front section of coach, which forces Group 2 to wait until every single slowpoke in Group 1 has stowed his carry-on bags and has finished asking stupid questions of the stewardesses. Then Group 3 has to wait for every slowpoke in Group 2, and so on. It would be quicker and easier to board the coach passengers from rear to front. How do I know this? Simply by recalling that that’s how airlines used to do it, decades ago.

Here in New Hampshire, many of my neighbors drive Subarus.*** I hear that Subarus are good on snow, of which we get plenty. And yet I don’t recall ever seeing a Subaru ad. So where does Subaru advertise?

The Takeaway: Be here now.
______________________
* Every editor should have at least three metaphorical hands.
**I have no financial interest in the restaurant, inn or lake.
***I have no financial interest in Subaru or its parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries.

See disclaimer.

The etiquette of jargon – an editorial

A few years ago, as I was making a bank deposit, I noticed a half sheet of paper posted inside the teller’s cage. On it was a list of rules for good customer service. I was delighted to see that Rule #1 was “Don’t use bank jargon.”

The managers of that bank had enough insight to recognize that, although employees know that rule, they often need to be reminded of it. That’s because employees speak jargon all day with their co-workers. It eventually stops feeling like jargon, because everybody understands it.

Everybody except the customer, that is.

It is good manners and good business for employees to remain aware of their jargon, so they won't forget and use jargon in front of customers.

For more on jargon, go here.

The Takeaway: We all forget occasionally; we use jargon when speaking or writing to someone who probably doesn’t understand our jargon. The main thing is not to make this error too frequently. As the American writer Elbert Hubbard said, “Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.”*

__________________
*Unfortunately, even five minutes of folly can be too much on some days, including the day in 1915 on which Elbert Hubbard booked an Atlantic crossing on RMS Lusitania, in spite of the German government’s recent warning that it would fire on British-flagged passenger liners in the war zone. When the German navy torpedoed and sank the Lusitania, Elbert Hubbard and 1,194 other passengers and crewmen died.

See disclaimer.

Random thoughts (5)

Four decades ago, I was the manager of a corporate department that frequently needed temporary secretarial help. By far, the two best secretaries I ever hired were a young Mormon and a retired U.S. Marine. Since then, in the course of business, I’ve met other Mormons and Marines, all superior producers. I’m self-employed now, and that’s probably a good thing, because corporate types tell me that nowadays managers can be fired for noticing differences in productivity.

I used to patronize a certain long-established local printing company. One day in 2008 when I was picking up my letterhead and envelopes, the saleswoman announced, “We’re a green printer now.” This mature, practical, capable woman whom I had known for many years was disturbingly out of character; she was wearing a dreamy, cultish expression and her voice was ethereal and creepy. A few months later, the owner suddenly laid everyone off, closed the business and sold the presses. Coincidence? I don’t know; nobody from the company would talk publicly about anything.

Do you remember this? Customer service reps who asked you for your telephone number would read it back to you, to check whether they had typed it correctly. Well, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of reps don’t bother to do that any more. And the ones who do bother will read back only the last four digits. Sometimes, when I’m not in a hurry, I’ll experiment. I’ll say, “No, my number is not 2789. It’s 603-279-2789.” Usually, the rep will respond, “Right. 2789.” Or sometimes, “2789. Right.” I call these people “The Oblivitons” – short for “oblivious automatons.”

We writers are usually chagrined (I know I am) whenever we learn that we have committed a fallacy – that is to say, whenever we make a mistake that’s so common it actually has a name. The fact is, we don’t want to be common in any way. Like Luisa in The Fantasticks, we pray, “Please, God, please, don’t let me be normal!”

The Takeaway: Be here now.

See disclaimer.