The power of specificity (3) – an unspecified disaster

In previous posts (here and here) on the power of specificity, I’ve shown you samples of specificity and samples of vagueness.

Today I point you to another example of vagueness. It is a 565-word comment on an article. The article is titled “Why do expats go home? Why do they seek new overseas ‘havens’? Interviews with departing and relocating expats reveal the reasons.”

The author of the comment explains that he moved to Argentina ten years ago, that he had difficulty fitting in, and that he overcame his difficulty by making friends with some “bi-lingual and bi-cultural Argentines” who helped him understand the local culture and politics.

All well and good. The reader now expects the author to recommend that everyone expatriating to Argentina likewise find and make such friends, so as to enjoy a more serene and comfortable life there. And perhaps the author will provide a few examples of situations in which the friends and the understanding were helpful, and how.

But instead of doing those reasonable things, the author suddenly darkens the picture. He claims:

• That it is “absolutely important” that the reader understand the local culture and government;

• That “not understanding the culture, the laws, or the politics, can be an absolute disaster.”

After using such an extreme adverb (absolutely) and adjective (absolute), the author owes the reader some specificity. However, he gives none.

The reader wonders: “Is the government really that bad, or is this fellow just a blowhard? Will the cops kidnap and kill me, or just shake me down for a bribe now and then?”

Meanwhile, the author frivolously concludes his essay with this advice: “Keep your eyes and ears open.” This ancient cliche offers no specificity.

The Takeaway: If your writing is vague, you won’t make it specific just by adding absolutely, one of the most overused and abused adverbs in the English language, or other histrionic words. It will only make the reader more aware of how vague your writing is. Instead, just say what you mean, in specific, non-histrionic language. And give examples.

You’re not a retard, so don’t write like one

In a recent post I mentioned a message that some retard at Microsoft had built into Microsoft Word. I didn’t intend that post as a specific criticism of Microsoft; many suppliers of PC software and online services seem to have retards writing their messages.

Here are a few examples:

Hmm, that’s not the right password. [Is that “Hmm” supposed to be the sound the software makes while it’s “thinking”?] 

Whoa there! There’s nothing here. Whatever you were looking for doesn’t currently exist at this address. Unless you were looking for this error page, in which case: Congrats! You totally found it.

Congrats on successfully changing your email address! We really like your new one. It’s totally awesome! [Am I supposed to believe that the software is so sophisticated that it possesses aesthetic sense but simultaneously is so callow that it uses the vocabulary of a skateboarder?] Now you can log in to Your Account Page using the new email address you provided to us! Cool, huh? [No, it’s not cool. It’s just a mundane function.]

Well, this is embarrassing.

He’s dead, Jim!

Whoa there!

Oops!

Awk!

Ack!

Analysis of the examples

This kind of diction is not clever; it’s frivolous and puerile. It’s not helpful to your readers; it’s distracting. And it’s not polite to your readers; it’s offensive, because it presumes the reader is an intimate friend and is as ditzy as the writer.

In contrast, here are a few messages that are clear, helpful, polite and dignified:

The information you entered does not match our records. Please check your information and try again.

Your account is loading. This may take a moment.

Please wait while you are logged in...

These messages sound like they were written by intelligent, well-balanced grown-ups. The writers have used no hype, interjections, exclamation points or Star Trek quotations. And they have used no false intimacy or false enthusiasm.

The Takeaway: If you are in charge of writing anything that will be read by customers, don’t write like a frat boy, dude, ingénue, bimbo, scatterbrain or flibbertigibbet. In other words, don’t offend the people who enable your employer to pay you.

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.

Don't be trendy – be considerate

Don’t abuse the preposition around

A corporate writer recently wrote “The company wanted to improve its processes around managing change.” The preposition of, or the preposition for, would have been more precise than the preposition around.

A political writer wrote “centering assessment around common work.” It should have been “centering assessment on common work.”

Very likely, these writers abused around simply because they wanted to follow the cutesy trend of promiscuously abusing around. The writers indulged their desire to be cutesy at the expense of their readers, who must pause for a few moments and decode the sentences. In other words, the writers were being fatuous, lazy and inconsiderate.

Other cutesy, semi-literate fads include the abuse of comfortable, drive, excited, issue, passion, self-esteem and sustainability. Such abuse not only confuses your readers but also dulls your mind.

The Takeaway: Be considerate of your readers; don’t follow semi-literate fads. Following semi-literate fads may cause your semi-literate readers to admire you, but it will almost certainly cause your literate readers to disdain you.

See disclaimer.

If you write “the equation,” state the equation (2)

Last year I published a post about people who like to write about “the equation” but never state the equation they’re presumably writing about. Here are four more examples, from a few minutes of Googling:

The web site of a research company called “Equation Research” does not appear to state any equations. (Source)

A web site called “Lori-in-the-equation” does not state the equation, so far as I can see. At one point, Lori mentions “the center of the equation.” At another point Lori suggests that she has left it up to the reader to “define what being in your equation really means.” The web site appears to be about women losing weight. (Source)

A blog called “The Equation: A blog on independent science + practical solutions,” purportedly written by scientists, does not appear to state the equation. As of the time (8/3/2013 1:02 PM EDST) I looked at the blog, most of the recent posts seemed to be about politics, not science. (Source)

A newspaper article with “Critical Latino Vote has Changed the Equation” in the headline does not state what the equation was or what the “critical Latino vote” changed it to. (Source)

The Takeaway: Writing about an equation without stating the equation is flimflam. Write like an honest, intelligent grown-up: If you mean situation, write “situation,” not “equation.” If you mean rules, write “rules,” not “equation.” Whatever you mean, write the word for it; don’t write “equation.” If you don’t know what an equation is, don’t sabotage your credibility by using the word equation.

Update, 8/9/2013 8:47 AM: I removed an example; a reader had pointed out that the equation had indeed been stated.

See disclaimer.

Never try to fool your readers

If you are ever tempted to try to sneak by with a false, misleading, incomplete or illogical assertion, remember this: It takes only one intelligent reader to spot your offense and publicly humiliate you. Here’s a well-known example.

In the early news coverage of the criminal case against security guard George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, a tape recording revealed that a police dispatcher had told Mr. Zimmerman not to continue following Mr. Martin. Many reporters in the mainstream media broadcast that part of the tape recording but deliberately hid Mr. Zimmerman’s reply, which was “O.K.”

One intelligent reader, the economist Thomas Sowell (pictured), commented:

That reply removed the only basis for assuming that Zimmerman did in fact continue to follow Trayvon Martin. At this point, neither I nor the people who assumed that he continued to follow the teenager have any basis in fact for believing that he did or didn’t.

Why was that reply edited out by so many in the media? Because too many people in the media see their role as filtering and slanting the news to fit their own vision of the world.

...

[Also, many news reports made] references to Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic.” Zimmerman is half-white. So is Barack Obama. But does anyone refer to Obama as a “white African”?

The Takeaway: Yes, you can easily fool the average reader; he’s not very bright. But you cannot easily fool the intelligent reader. So unless you are writing, say, a romance novel or a grant application and can safely assume that all your readers are stupid, be sure to aim your writing at the intelligent reader. Keep your language honest, logical and clear.

See disclaimer.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (19)

In my occasional posts of writers’ quotations, I have not attempted to have a theme for each post. Today I do have a theme: the propagation of stupidity in Western culture.

“Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.”
~Albert Camus (pictured)

“We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture.... For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.”
~Carl Bernstein

“In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.”
~Herman Melville, in Moby Dick

“We should ponder here the state of modern American journalism: endowed with intelligent and able people who are quite willing to suppress what they know to be valid opinions in order not to endure hostility from their stupider and less able colleagues.”
~Dominic Lawson, on political correctness

“There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.”
~Thomas Sowell

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.”
~Noam Chomsky

“The thought came upon me, as it has done quite a lot this past few years, that I shall likely end up in a labor camp. I can’t keep my mouth shut; I can’t clap along with the Kumbaya; and I can’t pretend assent to propositions that seem to me to be false. In the world we are fast heading into, that makes me camp fodder for sure.”
~John Derbyshire

“You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal – no one will see it. But when a button is missing – everyone sees that.”
~Erich Maria Remarque, in Arch of Triumph

“I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without [any printed matter] to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.”
~Newton Minow, in a famous 1961 speech to television broadcasters

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”
~Henry David Thoreau

The Takeaway: Let us avoid participating in the propagation of stupidity.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to Paul G. Henning for pointing out the Carl Bernstein quotation.

Unintentional humor from the executive suite

I’ve heard this story now and then over the years. I’ve also seen it on the Web. Perhaps you have, too. Whether true or fictitious,* it’s pretty funny:

As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s training programs and materials. In the body of the memo one of the sentences mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR Director’s office, and was told that the executive VP wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for “perverts” (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired, with the word “pedagogical” circled in red. The HR Manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send to my boss, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later a memo to the entire staff came out, directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation letter by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Source)

The Takeaway: Have a great Monday.


See disclaimer.

*If you have proof that this really happened, I would be interested in seeing it. Please email me at joeroy(at)joeroy(dot)com.

Avoiding redundancy (5)

Here are three redundancies that you often hear and sometimes read:

MLB baseball

MLB is an acronym for Major League Baseball, the name of the professional baseball league that consists of teams that play in the American League and National League. Therefore, when you say “MLB baseball,” you are actually saying “Major League Baseball baseball.”

PIN number

PIN is an acronym for personal identification number. Therefore, when you say “PIN number,” you are actually saying “personal identification number number.”

And et cetera

Et cetera is Latin for and others. So when you say “And et cetera,” you are actually saying “and and others.”

The Takeaway: Whether you are speaking or writing, be careful to avoid redundancy. If you use a lot of redundancies, your intelligent listeners or readers may conclude that you are ill-educated, stupid or careless.

See disclaimer.

If you write "the equation," state the equation

Most people who like to write about “the equation” never state the equation they’re writing about. Here are a few examples:

This Bloomberg article about bond trading quotes a banker: “Now, at least part of the equation that favored Bush is changing.” But neither the banker nor the reporter states the equation, specifies the part that is changing, or states how that part is changing.

It gets worse: Here’s an organization that devotes a web page to “a major program” for “Changing the Equation.” But the organization does not state the equation that the major program is expected to change – much less the change(s) that the major program is expected to make.

But it gets even worse than that: There’s an organization that calls itself “Change the Equation.”

However, Change the Equation does not state the equation that Change the Equation presumes to change, or how Change the Equation presumes to change the equation.*

And possibly worst of all: ExxonMobil, which employs 14,000 scientists and engineers, all of whom know what an equation is, has joined the poor innumerate souls over at Change the Equation. ExxonMobil may have already picked up some bad habits from the relationship: Like Change the Equation, ExxonMobil states no equations or changes in equations when talking about Change the Equation.

The Takeaway: Writing about an equation without stating the equation is flimflam. If you mean situation, write “situation,” not “equation.” If you mean rules, write “rules,” not “equation.” Whatever you mean, write the word for it; don’t write “equation.” If you don’t know what an equation is, don’t sabotage your credibility by using the word equation.

See disclaimer.

*One full equation does appear on the organization’s web site: “And remember, 10 points roughly equals a grade level’s worth of learning.” However, it does not appear to be the equation. And on the bottom of the home page, a posed photograph shows parts of two equations on a chalkboard.

A clear and concise statement of surgery prices

As you probably know, U.S. health care providers make it difficult or impossible for a patient who needs surgery to learn the price of the surgery in advance. (Article)

It is refreshing to see an exception: the Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Here are the Center’s prices and the exceptions to those prices, clearly and concisely stated.

Analysis:

This example proves that clear and concise writing is not an impossible goal, even in medicine. Even in the U.S. You may object that it is easier to write clearly and concisely about the Center’s pricing because the Center’s pricing model is simpler than the pricing model of most American health care providers. True, but that is exactly the point: all concise writing begins with clear thinking. U.S. medical pricing is difficult to describe clearly because U.S. medical pricing is a mess. U.S. medical pricing is a mess because nitwits have allowed it to become a mess.

The Takeaway: If at all possible and practical in your life, avoid writing for nitwits. The longer you are exposed to them, the more your writing skills will deteriorate.

See disclaimer.