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.

Beyond narcissism

In the last post, I showed you three examples of narcissistic writing and explained how narcissism can make a writer or public speaker look foolish.

In this post, I show you an article that goes beyond narcissism and into solipsism. It may or may not be a parody; nowadays, it’s hard to tell.

The first thing the typical reader notices is that the author, while writing about providing consulting services to businesses, sounds like a giddy child. She sounds bedazzled by the world of business, and she seems to have only a superficial awareness of how businesspeople think, speak and act.

The second thing the reader notices is that the author doesn’t realize that her typical reader would be familiar with common business expressions such “word of mouth” and “referrals,” and would know that these are long-established expressions* as opposed to hip new fads that they need to be introduced to. The author did not need to say:

… what people call “word of mouth” and “referrals.”

Nor did she need to say:

…what we call inbound marketing.**

By this point, the typical reader suspects that, metaphorically, the author just fell off the turnip truck. She seems to be new to business. There’s nothing wrong with that; we were all novices once. What is cringeworthy is the author’s lack of empathy; she seems to assume that her readers are as callow as she is.

In the next three paragraphs, she keeps the reader cringing:

In this process of speaking with startups and established companies over the past year and 8 months I have come to realize that there should be a profession that is specific to startup consulting. Why not call it what it really is. 

Startup consulting helps startups understand what they need to do to grow: Startups have problems. Startups have ideas. Startups need to define their market positioning. Startups need help.

Myself and all the other Inbound Marketing Specialists at HubSpot should really call themselves Startup Consultants. Every company was once a startup. Aspects of even established companies have startupy parts of them. (Boldface and italics in original.)

The author seems to think she has created startup consulting. To avoid embarrassing herself, all she need have done is take five seconds to Google the phrase “startup consulting.” (I just tried it and got 24,600,000 hits.)

In fact, I know several people who, for 30 years or more, have been consultants to startups. (By the way, I would be shocked if any of those consultants used the word “startupy,” or any other such puerile word – except ironically.)

In general, the author’s logic is unsound; e.g., she speaks of “aspects” that “have parts” and says “Talk with the company about their vision for what they want to solve for.” Her grammar, diction, punctuation and capitalization are careless. However, this post is already long, so I don’t have the space to provide more detail here.

The Takeaway: The author sounds like she has acquired astronomically too much self-esteem. She seems to be completely unaware how childish her writing sounds. If you are a novice and want to avoid a similar fate, do this: Before you write for publication, or speak in public, or become a consultant, first fill in any large gaps in your logic, grammar, diction, punctuation and capitalization. It won’t take more than 300 hours; i.e., it will take a lot less time than the average American adult spends watching television in 12 weeks.*** But it does demand attention, humility and empathy. Do this and you will look and sound a lot more experienced.
______________
*For example, “word of mouth” has been in use since 1553.

**If the author had simply glanced at her employer’s home page, she would have seen the phrase “Inbound Marketing & Sales Software” and could have gathered that her employer assumes that visitors to its website already know what inbound marketing is.

***The average is more than 33 hours per week (source). My math: 33 hours per week times 12 weeks = 396 hours.

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.

Steven Pinker on bad writing by good people

Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker (pictured), a compelling and entertaining writer, recently published an article, “The Source of Bad Writing,”* in which he says that “the single best explanation of why good people write bad prose” is “the Curse of Knowledge.” The Curse is “a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know.” He includes illustrative examples and sound advice on how to lessen or work around that difficulty.

I salute Mr. Pinker for calling attention to the difficulty. During 47 years as a writer and editor, I have seen many knowledgeable people struggle to write clearly for readers who have less knowledge than they do. I struggle, too. Perhaps you do, too.

The Takeaway: I urge you to read Mr. Pinker’s article, “The Source of Bad Writing.” As he says, “Always try to lift yourself out of your parochial mind-set and find out how other people think and feel. It may not make you a better person in all spheres of life, but it will be a source of continuing kindness to your readers.” Read the article, follow the specific advice in it, and you will improve your ability to connect with readers and audiences.
________________
*May require subscription.

International Plain Language Day

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.

The "Ten Best Sentences"

In case you missed it: The editors of The American Scholar selected the “Ten Best Sentences” in English-language literature and published their selections.

Writing teacher Roy Peter Clark wrote a blog post offering “brief interpretations... on how and why these sentences work.”

The Takeaway: Read the ten best sentences silently. Then read them aloud. Then read Mr. Clark’s interpretations. Keep the URLs handy and review the sentences and interpretations from time to time. This kind of reading will slowly and steadily make you a better writer.

See disclaimer.

As opposed to what?

Often a writer will use a phrase that prompts his reader to wonder, “As opposed to what?”

For example:

“Fee-for-service.” Your reader knows that a fee is an amount of money he has to pay for a service, so when he encounters the adjectival phrase “for service,” it sounds redundant. He wonders, “As opposed to what? A fee for something other than service? A fee that entitles me to no service?” A service with no fee? A service offered in barter?

Similarly:

“Sugar diabetes.” Are there types of diabetes that have nothing to do with blood sugar?

“Core fundamentals.” What other kinds of fundamentals are there? Extraneous fundamentals? Tangential fundamentals?

A “Freshwater Rinse” button on a washing machine. As opposed to what? A salt-water rinse?

The Takeaway: Remember, your reader can’t read your mind. If you combine a familiar noun with a redundant-sounding modifier, tell your reader what you are talking about. If you don’t, he may become distracted. Anticipating and preventing his distraction is part of the job of writing.

See disclaimer.

Weasel words online

When you buy a ticket online from American Airlines (AA), the AA computer responds with this:

Note: This is not your receipt. You will be receiving your itinerary confirmation along with your receipt soon. You may print your Itinerary & Receipt directly from AA.com once the status is updated from “Ticket Pending” to “Ticketed”.

Except for “AA.com,” these are all familiar English words. But as AA has combined them, the words conceal more information than they reveal. They have become weasel words. Here are the words again, interspersed with the unspoken reactions of an intelligent customer:

Note: This is not your receipt.

Not my receipt? Then what is it, and why are you showing it to me? Where’s my receipt?

You will be receiving

On this page? In an email? In the U.S. Mail?

your itinerary confirmation along with your receipt soon.

“Soon.” Does that mean seconds, minutes, hours or days?

 You may print your Itinerary & Receipt directly from AA.com

Print them from the email you will send me, from this page which is open right now, or – as “directly from AA.com” suggests – by abandoning this page and going to the AA home page? You’re confusing me.

once the status is updated from “Ticket Pending” to “Ticketed”.

And how will I know when or whether that action has been completed? Will I see some notice on this page, in the email you may or may not send me, or on some page I have to go to after I go back to the home page? How long will it take? I just spent more than a week’s pay for an airplane ticket and you won’t even tell me how or where or when I will receive a receipt? Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?

The Takeaway: If you are responsible for the words that your company uses in its online commerce, always keep in mind that you may be insulting thousands of customers every hour. That’s worse than erecting an insulting billboard beside a busy highway. Before you put your words online, have them edited by a careful reader.

See disclaimer.

An embarrassing promo from Grammarly

I received a promotional email from a fellow at Grammarly. Here it is, with my reactions interspersed.

Hi Joe,

You know better than most that putting your writing “out there”

[Instead of “putting your writing ‘out there,’ ” why not use the more natural “publishing your writing”? Also, the cliche “out there” distracts the reader by introducing a tone of paranoia.]

takes a tremendous amount of courage; readers will find and comment on even the simplest mistakes. At Grammarly we know the feeling - and we’ve made it our mission to improve writers’ confidence.

[Not to tell you how to run your business, but wouldn’t it be better to make it your mission to improve writers’ writing? Excessive confidence is a major reason why one-third of Americans are illiterate; instead of teaching grammar, the grammar schools instill self-esteem (unwarranted, delusional confidence). It seems to me that a company called Grammarly should be the last entity in the world pandering to the delusion.]

Putting our money where our mouth is, we’d be honored to sponsor your next blog post with a $100 Amazon gift card.

[I don’t understand the logic of that sentence.]

In case you haven’t heard of us, Grammarly is an automated online proofreader that finds and explains those pesky

[I have never seen a grown man actually write the childish word pesky, except in jest.]

grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes that are bound to find their way into your first draft.

[Mistakes do not “find their way into” my first drafts; I make the mistakes. Your “find their way into” has the same tone of paranoia as your “out there,” as in “Ohhh, those mistakes are swarming out there like mosquitoes, just waiting for a chance to find their way into my office and my first draft.”]

Think of us as a second pair of digital eyes

[Where was the first pair of digital eyes? My eyes are human.]

that can spare you the cost of hiring a proofreader. If you'd like to join our 3 million users and try the premium version of our proofreader for free, let me know and I’ll make it happen!

[“Make it happen” is an annoying cliche. And please spare me the gratuitous exclamation point.]

Please send me the expected publishing date and topic of your next appropriate blog post (ideally something about writing) so I can give you all the details you need in time.

[No, thank you. I was already thinking of buying a subscription to Grammarly, which appears to be a useful tool. Even this embarrassing email won’t deter me; I’ll give the company the benefit of the doubt and assume that the employees who designed the product are more diligent than you.]

The Takeaway: Edit and proofread everything you intend to publish. Everything.

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Grammarly. Also see my general disclaimer.

Puerile writing vs. grown-up writing (4)

In previous posts (1, 2, 3)* I’ve described puerile writing as narcissistic, histrionic and bloated. Today I describe puerile writing with one more adjective: palsy-walsy: “friendly in a way that is not proper or sincere.” Here are three examples, with my reactions:

Example 1

Recently when I tried to sign in to my LinkedIn account, I received this message:

Hmm, that’s not the right password. Please try again or request a new one.

I assume “Hmm” is intended to make me think that this automated response was typed, in real time, by a real human being – a human being who is my pal and writes to me in a conversational style, even using conversational interjections like “Hmm.” This is an insult to my intelligence.

Example 2

Recently I changed my password on Twitter. I received this email:

Woo hoo! Your password has been changed!

What is “Woo hoo!” doing in a business email? I have never seen a grown-up use this expression in writing, and the only people I’ve heard say it aloud were ditzy teenage girls. And why are there two exclamation points in this routine message?

Example 3

Almost every new vendor who writes to me – via email, post card, or letter – tells me that he/she/it is “excited” to have me as a new client. I’m glad to know they’re pleased, but I don’t want them excited. I don’t want their hands to be trembling – especially surgeons and dentists.

The Takeaway: Whenever you write to clients, customers or prospects, show some respect. Use courteous, dignified language. You don’t have to be stuffy. You can be appropriately informal in most situations; for example, the contraction in “We’ve updated your password as you requested” is perfectly fine. Just don’t slobber all over the reader. For more on palsy-walsy offenses, see Ken Smith’s incisive book Junk English.

_______________________

Summary of the characteristics of

puerile writing and grown-up writing

Puerile writing is:

Narcissistic:  Entertains the author and indulges his whims.
Histrionic:  Injects false excitement into routine transactions.
Bloated:  Indulges in redundancy, circumlocution and tangents.
Palsy-Walsy:  Insinuates a depth of friendship that does not exist.

Grown-up writing is:

Empathic:  Informs, assists and pleases the reader.
Sober:  Maintains an appropriate tone for each message.
Streamlined:  Includes only the essentials and important details.
Courteous:  Shows respect for the reader.

_______________________
*I apologize for taking more than three years to complete the series.


Update, Thursday, October 10, 2013: When I changed my Netflix plan today, the company’s automated response was, “You have successfully changed your plan to 2 DVDs out at-a-time.” See? No interjections, exclamation points or histrionics. This is how grown-up companies write; it takes no more energy or time than the childish drivel from Twitter.

See disclaimer.

Know your audience (1) – the Sokal affair

To meet the objective of whatever you are writing, you must know your audience. It’s a cliche but it’s true. Let’s take a look at an extraordinary example. It involve questionable morals, but it illustrates the point.

This is an excerpt of the Wikipedia entry for the Sokal affair:

“The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax, was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In subsequent publications, Sokal claimed that the submission was an experiment to test the journal’s intellectual rigor and, specifically, to investigate whether ‘a leading North American journal of cultural studies – whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross – [would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors’ ideological preconceptions?’

...

“The article, ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,’ published in the Social Text Spring/Summer 1996 ‘Science Wars’ issue, proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct.

“On its date of publication (May 1996), Sokal revealed in Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax, identifying it as ‘a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense... structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics.’ ” (Footnotes and several links omitted.)

I do not condone the perpetration of hoaxes, and I assume that your writing objectives are ethical. However, let us admire Mr. Sokal’s ability to precisely determine the interests and desires of a target audience. His hoax worked because he gave his audience what they wanted: “left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense.”

The Takeaway: Whenever you write something for a new audience, study that audience carefully. Don’t just spend a few minutes musing; dig in and do the research. Read things they like; listen to speeches and watch videos that have persuaded them; read what they write, and so on. Diligent research will dramatically increase your chances of achieving your objective.

See disclaimer.

*In the Lingua Franca article, Mr. Sokal wisecracked, “Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)”

The five most popular posts

This week is the blog’s fifth anniversary (founded April 20, 2008). I thought I would show you the five all-time most-visited posts. Yes, that’s an obvious thing to do on an anniversary – however, because this is an educational blog, I pay close attention to which topics are attracting readers the most.

Here are the five posts:

“Having said that.” Most writers who use this fad expression confuse and irritate their readers. (October 1, 2008)

The danger of euphemism. How a nurse used a politically correct euphemism in order to increase the self-esteem of an incarcerated serial rapist; the euphemism allowed the rapist to escape. (November 21, 2008)

Empathetic and persuasive writing. Dale Carnegie analyzes a sales letter by telling us – line by line – how he reacts as a reader of the letter. Do this kind of analysis yourself and make your letters (emails, ads, web site) more empathetic and persuasive. (August 30, 2010)

A common fallacy. We writers should diligently strive to avoid using fallacies. One of the more common fallacies is “cherry picking.” (February 7, 2011)

Mixed metaphors. Thomas L. Friedman is a heavy user of mixed metaphors. He appears to be genuinely unaware of how clownish his writing sounds. But with three Pulitzers on his resume, Mr. Friedman can get away with such carelessness. Unfortunately, you and I cannot. (February 25, 2013)

The Takeaway: Thank you for your attention – today and over the years. I welcome your suggestions on topics to cover; please email me at joeroy(at)joeroy(dot)com. Best to you.

See disclaimer.

Childish language

In previous posts, I’ve pointed out that companies often allow their programmers’ childish language to be glimpsed by customers. These glimpses can distract, confuse and irritate the customers.

For example, when a user of Google’s Gmail has no messages in his Inbox, he sees this message:

No new mail! See what people are talking about on Google+.

When there are no messages in his Sent Mail box, he sees this message:

No sent messages! Send one now!

When there are no messages on file anywhere in his account, he sees this message:

You don’t have any mail! Our servers are feeling unloved.

Analysis

These messages contrive excitement: although all three messages are routine, there is at least one exclamation point in each message.

The messages also express a childish anthropomorphism: the “servers are feeling unloved.”

And the messages demonstrate a childish narcissism: they imply that Google thinks the non-existent emotions of its non-sentient servers are somehow more important than the real emotions of irritation and disdain felt by real sentient beings: the customers reading those messages.

Grown-up versions

Here are grown-up, sober versions of the three messages.

There is no new mail.

There are no sent messages.

There is no mail on file anywhere in your account.

The Takeaway: Don’t risk distracting, confusing and irritating your readers – and damaging your credibility – by inserting childish language into routine communications. Google, with its colossal market position, can afford the risk; you and I cannot.

See disclaimer.

Don’t go out of your way to confuse your readers

One of the greatest sins a writer can commit is to go out of his way to confuse his readers.

It’s bad enough to confuse your readers inadvertently or accidentally. We all do it: While writing, we select a wrong word. While editing, we recast a sentence but forget to delete parts of the old sentence. While proofing, we fail to notice that a few words are missing from the middle of a paragraph.

These are all forgivable sins.

But it is an unforgivable sin to contaminate, without  a very good reason, something that is already clear and already published.

Here’s an almost unbelievable example: A few years ago the technology company Network Solutions decided to rename some of its long-established services. By doing so, the company confused and annoyed an untold number of its loyal customers.

Blogger John Graham-Cumming told the tale better than I ever could, so I refer you to him.

The Takeaway: If you ever notice that you are feeling excited and giddy because you have suddenly seen a way to take an old, humdrum phrase and make it cleverer or cuter, take a cold shower. Then go back to your desk and reconsider the change you are about to make. You need a very good reason to risk confusing readers who are familiar with the old phrase. Make the change only if you are certain it is worth the risk.

P.S.: You probably noticed that the Network Solutions marketing people used the trendy but illogical phrase “focused around.” I do hope the customer service people don’t think and write like that.

See disclaimer.

Safety warnings (4) – Halloween masks

A convenience store posted a Halloween-related safety warning on the front door:

“For the safety of our customers and employees, please remove your masks before entering store.”

The sentence suggests that if a trick-or-treater enters the store wearing a Halloween mask, he may harm customers or employees. But the sentence doesn’t say how; it is vague.

Let’s attempt a rewrite.

Our first task is to guess what the writer meant but did not say. Which of the following did he mean?

1.    If a trick-or-treater enters the store wearing a mask, a customer or employee may be frightened by the mask and have a heart attack.

2.    If a trick-or-treater enters the store wearing a mask, a customer or employee may fear that the person behind the mask is really an armed robber, and the customer or employee may have a heart attack or may be injured while running or diving for cover.

3.    A customer or employee may be carrying a concealed pistol, may see the masked trick-or-treater enter the store, may think he is an armed robber, may hastily draw his pistol to shoot him, but may shoot a customer or employee standing near the “armed robber.” (Remember, the writer mentioned “the safety of our customers and employees,” not the safety of the visiting trick-or-treater.)

Those are all unlikely occurrences, but #3 is probably the least unlikely of them.

But if the writer meant something like #3, he has made a weak appeal to the trick-or-treater. Most people are more afraid to be shot than to see someone shot. Therefore the writer really meant:

“For your safety, please remove your mask before entering the store. If you wear your mask in the store, someone may think you’re a robber and shoot you.”

I suspect that the writer was unconsciously afraid to be that specific. He may have been afraid to upset hoplophobic customers. Or perhaps there are statutes that prohibit specificity (I am not a lawyer and I do not know).

There is also a question about height: certainly a six-year old trick-or-treater in a mask would not look like a potential armed robber. Was the sign intended for him, too?

And there are more questions, but we need not waste time on them. The point is made: the writer did not think at all, in the sense of conscious, rational thought. Careless writers usually snatch at the first words that come to mind (often clichés). Then, without editing or proofreading, they publish what they have written. And force their readers to guess.

The Takeaway: If you are ever responsible for writing or editing a safety warning, give it your most careful attention. Unless there are prohibitions against specificity, make your warning specific. Here’s a good example of a specific warning.

See disclaimer.

Readers' responses

Last Monday I said that I thought the writing style of the historian and journalist Tom Engelhardt was boring but that I couldn’t specifically say why. I asked readers to volunteer an analysis of any of his articles. Here are the first three responses, in the order received:

Paul G. Henning, analyzing “The Military Solution,” wrote:

The introduction to the thesis is too long, with information and asides that distract and annoy the reader. Can’t the first paragraph say that “With less than 1% of Americans serving in the military today, it is not surprising that US conflicts on foreign soil hold little interest to most Americans.”?

Yet that paragraph has nothing to do with and is not logically connected to the following paragraph. (At which point you throw your hands up in the air; you must go back over what you have just read.)

He uses jargon.

He is in love with parenthetical expressions.

He makes assertions after statements with no facts, evidence or relevance.

And finally: “all enswathed in a penumbra of secrecy.” As Lewis Black would say, “Are you @#%* kidding me?”

Cheryl Stephens wrote:

Well, I lost interest too soon to be able to offer any personal opinions. But I ran [some of Tom Engelhardt’s writing] through Grammarly.com’s review where it received 33 out of 100 points meaning it has poor style and needs revising. Reading it just requires too much effort – not because it is intellectually challenging – because it is poorly written and contains non-standard grammar and so on.

Christa Sammons wrote:

I see what you mean about Tom Engelhardt, and how it’s hard to know exactly why the articles seem less than exciting. Maybe it’s a combination of content and style. I frankly didn’t see much that was new in the articles I read, nothing I hadn’t heard before as an NPR listener and a casual reader of The New York Times. Then I got to thinking about the title “TomGram.” It made me expect something with a lot of personal voice, if Tom and I are on a first-name basis. “Gram” made me think of a telegram, so I expected something staccato and elliptical that was transmitting important news, or maybe something more essayistic and edgy. But what I got was good solid expository prose such as I would expect to find in a college textbook.

The Takeaway: Many thanks to readers Paul G. Henning, Cheryl Stephens, and Christa Sammons. It seems to me that a common denominator of the comments is that Mr. Engelhardt is putting too little diligence into his writing and therefore disappointing some readers. Please note that I am not singling out Mr. Engelhardt; we have all erred in similar ways. See disclaimer.

Sloppy writing is bad business

Sloppy writing can damage the company that allows it to reach the eyes of customers and prospects. Here’s a recent example:

The URL-shortening company bitly made a major change in its marketing strategy and thereby confused and irritated many of its customers.* The company not only made a confusing change, but also announced the change in sloppy, heavy-handed, arrogant language.

I was making a few notes for a blog post on this rich topic when I noticed that the prolific author Gary North had already published a piece on the topic. Dr. North describes bitly’s self-destructive behavior with his usual directness and thoroughness. Here’s a sample:

“Incoherent? Yes. That’s because a programmer wrote it. Obviously, no one beta-tested it with Ordinary Users.”

You can read the full article here.

The Takeaway: I recommend you read the article, especially if you are a programmer, engineer, or other technical person. You may not have the time to keep improving your writing; you have your own work to do. Of course. But please, at least test your writing on non-technical readers before you publish it.

See disclaimer.

*Disclosure: I am one those confused and irritated customers.

A great lesson in empathy

On this blog I frequently discuss the importance of having empathy for your reader: knowing how your reader will probably react to what you write. In several posts I’ve shown detailed examples of reader reactions, such as Dale Carnegie’s reactions to an impudent sales letter.

Here’s another example. The reader, Peter Shankman, is an intelligent, creative thinker and a highly skilled writer. He was reacting to an especially stupid public-relations pitch. He was generous enough to respond with a detailed, helpful, educational blog post.

The Takeaway: I urge you to read Mr. Shankman’s post. Although you and I are (we hope) unlikely to ever be as churlish as the PR person who pitched Mr. Shankman, we should always welcome opportunities to learn more about empathy.

See disclaimer.

Practical tips for writers (3) – C.S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis (pictured), author of The Chronicles of Narnia, managed to write an individual reply to almost every fan letter he received. In a remarkable letter to a young American fan he included a wealth of writing advice. Two excerpts:

“Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.”

“Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‘More people died’ don't say ‘Mortality rose.’ ”

The Takeaway: Read and heed the rest of the advice from C. S. Lewis.

See disclaimer.

Negligent writing

If you’re like me, you have often received emails that you had difficulty deciphering. Usually, the cause of the difficulty is that the writing is negligent (“characterized by careless ease or informality”). The writer cobbled together a first draft, with little or no empathy for his readers, and hit “SEND.”

For example, I received an email that began with these two sentences:

“Due to the package compromise of 1.4.11,1.4.12 and 1.4.13, we are forced to release 1.4.15 to ensure no confusions. While initial review didn’t uncover a need for concern, several proof of concepts show that the package alterations introduce a high risk security issue, allowing remote inclusion of files.”

Analysis

In an adverbial phrase, “Due to the package compromise of 1.4.11,1.4.12 and 1.4.13,” the writer refers to an event, “the package compromise.” The syntax indicates that he presumes I have already heard of the event (I have not). By the way, this kind of writing error is known as indirection.

The writer further presumes that I know what a “package compromise” is. I do not.

He continues his indirection in “we are forced to release 1.4.15.” From the context I can guess that “1.4.15” is a software release. But his indirection suggests that he presumes I have been aware that such a release was coming. I have not been.

Then he adds the adverbial phrase “to ensure no confusions.” He assumes that I know, or can guess, what kinds of confusions he means, where these kinds of confusions occur, to whom, why, and under what conditions. I do not.

I’ll analyze the second sentence telegraphically, interspersing my reactions.

“While initial review”

Of what?

“didn’t uncover a need for concern,”

Concern about what?

“several proof of concepts”

What are “proof of concepts”?

“show that the package alterations”

What alterations? To what package?

“introduce a high risk security issue,”

Are you one of those effete writers who call problems “issues,” or do you really mean issues?

“allowing remote inclusion of files.”

Inclusion in what? By whom? That tears it! I’m switching to another vendor.

The Takeaway: When you see writing as bad as this, make a copy of it. Later, when you have some time, study the writing and draw lessons from it. Notice the phrases that were most confusing or annoying to you, and vow not to make the same kinds of mistakes.

Update, Thursday, March 29, 2012, 10:01 AM: Someone asked me if I really did switch vendors. Yes, I did.

See disclaimer.