Unintentional hedging (8)

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

A witness in the George Zimmerman trial:

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

And a restaurant employee being interviewed by the press:

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

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

See disclaimer.

Unintentional hedging (7)

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

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

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

Unintentional hedging is not surprising on Tumblr:

“IT'S KIND OF UNBEARABLE” (Source)

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Concise writing is usually clear writing (40) – Christopher Hitchens

The late writer Christopher Hitchens (pictured), a man of rough edges, could be exquisitely moving at times. My favorite passage is this one:

When my father died and was buried in a chapel overlooking Portsmouth—the same chapel in which General Eisenhower had prayed for success the night before D-Day in 1944—I gave the address from the pulpit and selected as my text a verse from the epistle of Saul of Tarsus, later to be claimed as “Saint Paul,” to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 8):

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

I chose this because of its haunting and elusive character, which will be with me at the last hour, and for its essentially secular injunction, and because it shone out from the wasteland of rant and complaint and nonsense and bullying which surrounds it. (Source)

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.

Have a healthy and prosperous new year!

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.

Concise writing is usually clear writing (39) – Fred Reed

Fred Reed (pictured), a former U. S. Marine, is a veteran police reporter. He describes himself as “an equal-opportunity irritant.”

His writing style is concise, clear and candid. Unlike many reporters, he rarely hides behind circumlocution, insinuation, innuendo, ambiguity, euphemism or equivocation. For example, in his recent blog post, “Black Power: A Done Deal,” he concisely and clearly states an opinion that tens of millions of Americans are afraid to state candidly – or even think.

Here are three excerpts:

“It is curious that blacks, the least educated thirteen percent of the population, the least productive, most criminal, and most dependent on governmental charity, should dominate national politics. Yet they do. Virtually everything revolves around what blacks want, demand, do, or can’t do. Their power seems without limit.”

. . .

“We must never, ever say or do anything that might upset them, as virtually everything does. It is positively astonishing. One expects the rich and smart to have disproportionate power. But America is dominated from the slums.”

. . .

“The dominance extends to children. When in junior high one of my daughters brought home a science handout with common chemical terms badly misspelled. ‘Is your teacher black?’ I said without thinking. ‘Daaaaaaady!’ she said in anguish, having made the connection but knowing that she shouldn’t have. Blacks control what you can say to your own children in your own home.”

Analysis

I don’t know whether you agreed or disagreed with Mr. Reed’s opinion, but I’m sure you easily understood what the opinion is. He states it concisely, clearly and candidly.

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.

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.

Don’t worry about big, conspicuous errors

Do you worry that someday you’ll make a big, conspicuous error and embarrass yourself publicly?

Stop worrying about that.

If you write a lot, you almost certainly will make such an error someday, but you shouldn’t feel too embarrassed when it happens. You see, if you have made a habit of clear writing, your loyal readers will chuckle at, and immediately forgive you for, the occasional big error.*

If you must worry about something, worry about leaving a residue of small errors in every paragraph, bogging down your reader. Most readers do not forgive that.

A recent article, “Arne Duncan vs. Oklahoma,” illustrates what I mean. Here are the first four paragraphs of the article (minus the links), with my comments:

“In yet another stunning example of his lack of knowledge about life outside the elitist Washington bubble, [United States Secretary of Education] Arne Duncan came out swinging at Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin during a press conference yesterday (6/9) for signing the bill (HB3399) to end the Common Core State Standards initiative in Oklahoma.”

The phrase “came out swinging” is ambiguous: What exactly did Mr. Duncan say or do?

“Apparently, pure politics caused the governor (current Chair of the National Governor’s Association, who along with the Council of Chief School Officers propelled a set of education standards into national lexicon) to abandon Common Core for her state.  Apparently the thousands of parents who wrote letters, sent emails and called Governor Fallin’s office urging her to sign HB3399 during the interim between passage (5/23) and signing (6/5), have been downgraded to political widgets in a game of chicken between a state and the federal government.”

The reader has to read quite a lot of this paragraph before he recognizes that the author is being ironic.

“It’s interesting how quickly the anti-Common Core forces, once vilified as ‘conspiracy theorists’, ‘fearmongers’ and ‘liars’ have become vindicated since – and by Duncan’s own hand no less.  Duncan’s latest temper tantrum can’t help but make it readily apparent to even the passing skeptic that there must be something to the legions of arguments connecting Common Core and federal overreach into public education.”

The reader wonders how these “anti-Common Core forces” are related to “the thousands of parents who wrote letters…”

“Truly, no one (including the Fordham Institute or Bill Gates) has been able to effectively mount an argument supporting the stake the U.S. Department of Education has in Oklahoma’s education standards. Really, what does Arne Duncan care what standards Oklahoma uses to educate its children? What difference can it mean to Duncan?”

It is difficult for the reader to infer a connection between the first sentence and the second and third sentences. My guess is that the author is trying to say, “The U.S. Department of Education has no stake in Oklahoma’s education standards, so Mr. Duncan should mind his own business and stop threatening Governor Fallin.”

The rest of the article is similarly confusing. In almost every paragraph, something impedes the reader: an awkward sentence, an overloaded sentence, an ambiguous verb, a confusing transition, a misplaced modifier.

The Takeaway: Put your energy into making every paragraph readable and clear. Your reader will notice and appreciate it. If you leave a residue of small errors in paragraph after paragraph, your reader will tire of slogging through it. He may even vow never to read another piece with your name on it.

See disclaimer.

_____________
*I relate this personal example in all modesty: Decades ago I was a PR man for Honeywell. One day, while I was visiting with the editor of a trade magazine, I noticed a Honeywell press release posted on a bulletin board. Looking more closely, I recognized it as a release in which I had made a grammar error – in the headline! I groaned. The editor smiled, shook his head, and said, “We see errors like this every day. This one was worth posting because it was from you.”

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.

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.

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.

Unintentional hedging (6)

Here’s a quick and easy way to write and speak more clearly: Don’t hedge unintentionally.

Unintentional hedging diminishes, undermines or negates your message. For example, this recent headline in Mother Jones:

NRA’s Armed Security Guard Proposal Kind Of Popular

Normally I avoid critiquing headlines, because headline writers often must sacrifice grammar and good diction in order to keep headlines short. But this headline writer deliberately made his headline longer in order to use the trendy hedge kind of. 

Kind of and like have become mania expressions in recent years. Often you see people quoted in the press who seem unable to use a predicate adjective without putting kind of or like in front of it: He looked kind of horrible. I was kind of terrified. It was like catastrophic. He seemed kind of psychotic. It was kind of apocalyptic.

Many people use more than one kind of or like per minute. If you hedge that frequently, even obtuse listeners are going to wake up and notice it. When they do, they will receive this unintended message from you: “I’m not really saying anything. I’m just thinking out loud, and I’m not even sure of the thoughts. So, don’t listen to me.”

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

Happy National Grammar Day!

See this timely story about

grammar and professional success.

Update, March 7, 2013: Rand Paul, a U.S. politician, apparently has scored a political point against Eric Holder, another U.S. politician. Yesterday, Mr. Paul told the Washington Post, “I’ve kind of won my battle.” (Source)

See disclaimer.