Gobbledygook (6)

Here’s an informative but also entertaining article titled “12 Horrible Gobbledygook Words We Reluctantly Accepted.” It appeared in mental_floss, a great online source of intelligent humor.

An excerpt:

“In 1883, a journalist named Godfrey Turner went on an awesome rampage against purist, writing, ‘What a word! We have here positively the only instance of an attempt to make a noun, by this clumsy inflection, direct out of a raw adjective.’ He wasn’t done with it yet though, going on to write in another publication, ‘whoever first committed to the legibility of black and white that vicious noun-substantive has, it may be hoped, lived to repent a deed that offends forever against verbal purity … among all blundering conceits of modern phraseology, [it] stands distinguished from its misshapen fellows by an unapproachable singularity of malformation.’ ” (Italic and boldface added.)

The Takeaway: Have a great day.

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.

Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (33)

On Truth and Delusion

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
~Carl Sagan

“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called a Religion.”
~Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”
~Edmund Burke (pictured)

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.”
~Ambrose Bierce

“It’s not that girls are delusional, per se. It’s just that they have this subtle ability to warp actual circumstances into something different.”
~Rebecca Serle

“[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.”
~Sam Harris

“To join adult human society, you must either become mad or fake it really well, because adult human society is an asylum.”
~Stefan Molyneux

The Takeaway: “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” ~Robert Frost

See disclaimer.

Nouns into verbs

If you love words, you will enjoy author, speaker and teacher Ralph Keyes (pictured). He is the language columnist for The American Scholar, where he writes a column titled “Back Talk.” He has a light touch; he is entertaining, not tedious. In a recent column he discussed the making of nouns into verbs, including those “tortured coinages that end in ‘ize.’ ”

The Takeaway: Best wishes to my fellow wordies.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to Paul G. Henning for introducing me to “Back Talk.”

Happy Birthday to Joan Didion

80 on December 5

Bits and pieces (3)

Today we present examples of errors that can make you sound ill-educated.

Misuse of prepositions

“This is the first and most important component to problem solving.” (Source)

The natural preposition here is of: “This is the first and most important component of problem solving.”

“In total, you see about twice the number of four-year students (~11 million) than two-year (~6.5 million).” (Source)

The natural preposition here is as: “In total, you see about twice the number of four-year students (~11 million) as two-year (~6.5 million).”

Use of fun as an adjective

“East Coast Grill in Cambridge - very fun place with great seafood/bbq.” (Source)

An educated grown-up would use entertaining, enjoyable, stimulating, or the like. Even rollicking. But not fun.

Non-parallel use of not only… but also

“He’s not only funny, but also he’s intelligent.” (Source)

The correlative conjunction not only… but also must be used in a parallel construction. In the example above, it is not. One correct alternative would be “He’s not only funny but also intelligent.” For additional correct alternatives, see this page in Grammarly Handbook.

The Takeaway: Whenever you are writing something for publication – even if it’s “just” a blog – present yourself as a well-educated grown-up. Have an experienced editor read your copy; that’s what well-educated grown-ups do.

See disclaimer.