Gibberish (2)

Learn to recognize gibberish (unintelligible or nonsensical speech or writing) so you won’t fall into the habit of imitating it. Here’s an example of gibberish; it’s the beginning of an essay by an anonymous writer:

How Life Is Prolonged

Did you know that having the awareness of good and evil is a distinguishing characteristic of mankind? Yes, it is a form of awareness that separates humanity from other living creatures: animals, birds, and bugs.

The writer learned about this kind of awareness from Richard W. Wetherill who had identified a created natural law he called the law of absolute right. It specifies people’s behavior to be rational and honest in order to be safe and to succeed.

Analysis

These two short paragraphs prompt the reader to silently ask several questions:

Why has the writer remained anonymous? Why has the writer not told the reader who Richard W. Wetherill is or was? Is the writer really Mr. Wetherill, secretly pimping for himself?

If “the awareness of good and evil is a distinguishing characteristic of mankind,” why didn’t the writer possess this characteristic since childhood? Why did he have to wait until he met Mr. Wetherill?

How is a “created natural law” different from a natural law? Isn’t “created natural law” an oxymoron?

Is the specific “created natural law” that Mr. Wetherill identified the same as or different from the awareness of good and evil?

Why did Mr. Wetherill call this law “the law of absolute right?” What is absolute right?

What was the writer trying to hide when he made the vague, ungrammatical statement, “It specifies people’s behavior to be rational and honest in order to be safe and to succeed,” instead of making a clear statement of the law? For example, in contrast, Magna Carta contains laws like this: “No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to live without a husband.” That’s eight centuries old, but it is still clear.

The rest of the essay is also gibberish. It does not answer any of my questions; indeed it raises more. I will stop here and spare you more analysis; read the whole essay if you wish.

The Takeaway: Much of the language we see in print or on the Internet is gibberish. Be wary of gibberish; it is seductive and addictive because it requires no effort and appears to say something.

See disclaimer.

Elegant variation (2)

Elegant variation is the gratuitous use of synonyms to avoid repetition of a noun or noun phrase. It is common practice among poorly educated writers, who think it is somehow refined.* It is not refined, but it can be confusing, distracting and irritating.

Example of elegant variation

In a wikiHow article titled “How to Solve a Problem,” the authors use obstacle, challenge and issue as synonyms for problem.

As a sample, here are the first 131 words of the article (boldface added):

Problem solving is one of the most essential [sic] skills in life. Regardless of who you are or what you do, you will face obstacles. How you deal with such challenges will often be a determining factor [sic] in how successful you are at life. While problems come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, this article can give you a rough idea of how to solve one in a general sense.

Steps

1. Approach the issue with clarity. This is the first and most important component to [sic] problem solving. While action and energy can often assist you in overcoming challenges, this effort is a waste if misguided or misplaced. The first step is always to approach any issue in a clear and logical manner, even if under time constraints or pressure.

Analysis of the example

When an intelligent reader encounters “obstacles,” he has to stop reading for a moment, look back, and guess whether the authors intend it as a synonym for “problems.” From the context, he guesses that it could be a synonym for “problems.” Or, the authors might be suggesting that an obstacle could be the occasion of a problem. He continues reading.

When he encounters “challenges,” he stops reading again. The word “such” preceding “challenges” helps him guess that the authors mean “challenges” as a synonym for “obstacles,” which in turn may or may not be a synonym for “problems.” He is becoming distracted, but he continues reading.

In the next sentence, he encounters “problems,” and feels a little better.

Then, in the next paragraph (Step 1), he reads, “Approach the issue with clarity.” His distraction is becoming irritation. He silently asks, “Are they using issue as yet another synonym for problem? “Why are these people fooling around like this? They promised to explain how to solve a problem, and now they’re playing games with me.” He continues reading.

During the remainder of Step 1, he encounters “problem,” “challenges” and “issue.” His irritation is becoming resentment. He silently thinks, “They’re not going to stop this. I’ll just look somewhere else.” He returns to Google to look for another article on how to solve problems.

The Takeaway: Try to avoid elegant variation. If you persistently use elegant variation, you will repel your intelligent readers.

See disclaimer.

*The phrase elegant variation was coined during the 1920s by Henry Watson Fowler, the British philologist and author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926). At that time, the word elegant connoted over-refinement. That connotation of elegant is now forgotten, so elegant variation has become a confusing misnomer. Today, gratuitous variation would be more accurate; however, elegant variation remains in wide use.

Coherence of paragraphs

Grammarians speak of the coherence of paragraphs. They call a paragraph coherent if a typical reader could easily recognize how all parts of the paragraph are connected. When a paragraph has coherence, reading it is like strolling through a park. When a paragraph lacks coherence, reading it is like slogging through ankle-deep mud.

Example of a paragraph that lacks coherence

Here’s an example of ankle-deep mud. It is the opening paragraph of an April 24, 2010 article opposing ObamaCare.*

“The American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association are both enamored of the Obama administration’s quest to socialize medicine. This position would seem curious, given the large majority of clinical physicians is strongly and vocally opposed. As the primarily academic and administrative members of these organizations might explain, it’s that they care primarily for patients, society, and the ‘greater good,’ while practicing physicians harbor impure motives. Narcissistic illusions of superior intellect and education are believed to bestow the right to rule others. After all, greedy clinician worker drones cannot be expected to understand the fantastic intricacies of their queen’s beloved policies. But as we subjects know all too well, the opposite is true. Isolation in palaces and ivory towers prevents accurate observation of the realities of the world outside. Instead these ‘leaders’ imagine the world as they wish it to be, scheming ever more elaborate strategies in a futile yet disastrous attempt to shape it to their will. The roots of this pathology can be traced to misguided belief in the good government fairy, insatiable lust for notoriety and power, and economic ignorance. Their most outrageous claim is the pronouncement that ObamaCare is going to be good for physicians and hospitals.” (202 words)

Critique of the paragraph

As I’m sure you noticed long before the end, the paragraph is confusing, tiring and irritating. It contains at least 27 errors of five types: circumlocution, faulty transition, abuse of the passive voice, elegant variation, and non-parallelism. Here is one example of each type:

Circumlocution: To say that people are “enamored of” something is a roundabout way of saying that they love it. Now, one circumlocution per paragraph won’t give readers too much trouble. But there are eleven in the example paragraph. Every few seconds the reader has to stop, decipher a circumlocution, and start reading again. These stops and starts cumulatively tire and irritate the reader.

Faulty transition: When the reader reaches the fourth sentence, “Narcissistic illusions of superior intellect and education are believed to bestow the right to rule others,” he does not easily recognize how this sentence relates to the previous three or the following six. He may eventually guess that the aforementioned academic and administrative members are the same people who have the narcissistic illusions. But non-fiction authors should not force their readers to guess.

Abuse of the passive voice: The passive construction “are believed to bestow” makes the fourth sentence even more confusing.

Elegant variation: Early in the paragraph, the author uses the phrase “clinical physicians.” Later, he uses “practicing physicians,” “clinician worker drones,” and “we subjects,” possibly as synonyms. Every time the reader encounters one of these possible synonyms, he has to stop reading, look back, and guess whether the author is still referring to the same people as before. Many readers resent the frequent use of elegant variation; they infer that the author wants to indulge his whims more than he wants to clarify his meaning.

Non-Parallelism: The author writes, “...they care primarily for patients, society, and the ‘greater good,’ while practicing physicians harbor impure motives.” Apparently he is trying to set up a direct contrast; if so, he should express the parts of the contrast in parallel form; for example, "care about patients, society, and the 'greater good' " vs. "care about profits." But he does not.

A clearer version

I rewrote** the example paragraph as two paragraphs and a numbered list:

Most practicing physicians (real doctors) oppose ObamaCare. Most academic and administrative physicians (paper doctors) support ObamaCare. Unfortunately, paper doctors dominate two powerful lobbies: the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association.

Paper doctors have five illusions:

1. That they care about patients, society, and the ‘greater good,’ whereas real doctors care about profits.

2. That they are smarter and better-educated than real doctors, who are too stupid to understand ObamaCare.

3. That smarter, better-educated people are entitled to rule.

4. That the federal government is a good fairy.

5. That ObamaCare will benefit physicians and hospitals.

Paper doctors have these illusions because they work in the isolated world of the hospital boardroom and the academic ivory tower. They know nothing about economics or the real world of doctors and patients. Nevertheless, they attempt to force the real world to conform to their illusions, while they feed their lust for power and fame. (153 words)

The Takeaway: Try to make every paragraph coherent. Your readers will notice and appreciate it. And they will be much more likely to understand, accept and remember your message.

See disclaimer.

*The popular nickname “ObamaCare” refers to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

**I did my best to guess the author's meaning.

Elegant variation

Another type of mistake in the Somalian immigrants story is elegant variation. Elegant variation is the gratuitous use of synonyms to avoid repetition of a noun or noun phrase. It is a common mistake among poorly educated writers, who tend to think the variation is somehow refined.*

The Associated Press writer fairly consistently refers to the Somalian immigrants as “the Somalis” or “Somalis.” But he slips into elegant variation with “[i]mmigrants” and “newcomers” and “black refugees from the war-torn African country.” Those mistakes reveal the writer’s poor training, but at least they are not too damaging to clarity.

However, the writer does do some damage in a key passage in which he is paraphrasing a Somali spokesman:

“Many had been placed in the Atlanta area, where it was assumed a warm climate and a large black population would ease their adjustment to America. But dismay at high crime, drugs and gangs prompted the community to look elsewhere, Mohamud said.”

“[T]he community” probably means the Somalis. In other words, the Somalis who had settled in Atlanta were dismayed at the crime, drugs and gangs they encountered there and they started looking for another city to move to.

But “the community” could also mean government officials in Atlanta. That is to say, government officials in Atlanta were dismayed by crimes, drugs and gangs that some Somalis introduced to Atlanta, and then the government officials decided to persuade or compel all Somalis to move to another city.

That is a less-probable meaning, but plausible enough to distract the reader. In other words, the elegant variation makes the reader waste his time doubting and then confirming the writer’s probable intent. In addition, the reader may become irritated when he realizes that the writer has distracted him for a frivolous purpose: to use elegant variation in order to purchase refinement on the cheap.

The Takeaway: Unless you are writing poetry, avoid elegant variation. It will confuse and irritate your readers.

*The phrase elegant variation was coined during the 1920s by Henry Watson Fowler, the British philologist and author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926). At that time, the word elegant connoted over-refinement. That connotation is now forgotten, so elegant variation has become a misnomer. I prefer gratuitous variation to elegant variation. By the way, I strongly recommend Mr. Fowler’s Dictionary.