Gobbledygook (7)

Pat Buchanan (pictured) is astute enough to spot gobbledygook, and combative enough to call people on it.

For example, in an article about high school admissions policy, Mr. Buchanan quotes Jeremy Shughart, admissions director at the merit-based Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (Fairfax County, Virginia):

“Says Shughart, ‘The committee is looking at a variety of admissions components and making recommendations for possible adjustments to future admissions cycles. … (We) will continue to work on increasing diversity at TJHSST and will continue to pursue outreach efforts to ensure talented underrepresented populations of students with a passion for math and science consider, apply to, and attend… Fairfax County Public Schools believes in the value of diversity.’ ”

Then Mr. Buchanan calls him on his gobbledygook:

“That is bureaucratic gobbledygook for saying they are going to start looking closer at the race and ethnicity of student applicants and begin using this criteria to bring in some — and to reject others.

“Race discrimination, against Asians, is coming to Fairfax County.”

The Takeaway: If you want to win debates and persuade people, strictly avoid gobbledygook – unless all your readers and listeners are stupid. Astute readers and listeners may call you on your gobbledygook. Then you are worse off than before: (1) you’ve made a weak point, and (2) your resort to gobbledygook demonstrates that you knew it was weak – otherwise, you would have stated it clearly and boldly.

You probably noticed that “this criteria” is ungrammatical.

See disclaimer.

Don’t add meaningless nouns

In a previous post, I talked about the silly practice of adding a meaningless noun immediately after a meaningful noun. In the US, probably the most familiar example is “the boarding process.”

Yesterday afternoon I saw two examples of meaningless nouns.

The first example

The first example was on my drive home from the hospital, where I had had a test. In a rural part of my drive home, I saw a handmade sign that offered “Firewood Materials.”

In most situations like this, I would stop and take a picture of the sign and try to interview the person who created it. But I wasn’t feeling so well, having been roughly handled at the hospital. As I drove by, I wondered what the seller would have handed me if I had walked up to him and asked, “Could I look at a sample of your firewood materials?”

I imagined that he would hand me a few packets of seeds – probably sugar maple, ash, beech and oak – and maybe a gardner’s trowel so I could plant them. Then I could harvest (is that the right word?) my firewood a few decades hence.

Or maybe, if I said I was not a patient man, he would just hand me a chain saw.

When I got home, I searched the web for “firewood materials.” Among some miscellaneous junk, I saw a URL for an organization called Don’t Move Firewood, which offers Don’t Move Firewood materials, such as posters, to help prevent the spread of pests that kill timber. A worthy cause, but I don’t think that was what the seller meant.

The second example

I started to read an “After Visit Summary” that my doctor had given me. Among other things, the summary said that the doctor was going to give me my test results by phone, one week later, between 5:00 and 9:00 PM. The summary explained that the reason for calling me in the evening was to allow me to receive my results “while you are in your home environment.” (Boldface added.)

Another example of the careless addition of a meaningless noun, I thought. But wait – a medical doctor wouldn’t be careless, would he? Maybe he put the word “environment” in there for a good reason – perhaps it was an attempt to conjure up an image of comfort and safety, to put me at my ease.

Uh-oh.

Hastily, I read the rest of the summary to see if it prohibited my having a drink tonight. It didn’t, and I did.

The Takeaway: Don’t add meaningless nouns. It can make you sound careless or even phony.

See disclaimer.

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.

The New Newspeak

A recent article, “The New Newspeak,” discusses how some politicians “twist English for political gain.” It gives seven examples of twisted terms:

“at risk”

“barriers”

“community”

“under-represented”

“under-served”

“homeless”

“downtrodden”

The author says, “There is far more here than wooly thinking. Each term arrives with ample, almost invisible baggage that infiltrates the brain and ultimately shapes behavior.”

The author appears to have an anti-Left bias. Take that bias into account when reading him, but also try to judge his points on their own merits.

The Takeaway: We writers should always be especially alert readers. For example, we should be aware of the “baggage” that some terms carry, and avoid delivering that baggage unintentionally. As Oscar Wilde said in a different context, “A true gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude.”

See disclaimer.

Microsoft CEO is a heavy user of cliches

Satya Nadella (pictured), CEO of Microsoft Corporation, writes badly. For example, his July 10, 2014, public memo to all employees, which journalists have described as “disquieting,” “plodding” and  “coma-inducing,” is filled with cliches:

Core

Drive

Embrace

Enable

Experience

First and foremost

Focus

Footprint

Fundamental

Global

Impact

Nimble

Off the table

Passion

Planet

Reinvent

Seamlessly

Share

Solution

Stuff

Transform

Truly

Unique

And more. In a single memo, Mr. Nadella seems to have used most of the cliches on the big-business checklist of cliches.

CEOs are paid to provide clear direction. When a CEO writes in cliches, he reveals timidity, evasiveness, or vague thinking. Employees, partners, customers and investors tend to be discouraged by this kind of writing. (For example, look at the faces in the picture above.)

The Takeaway: A few CEOs (for example, John Mackey and T. J. Rodgers) are good writers, but most are not. What you read in the press from most CEOs is bad writing. Bland, boring, effete, evasive writing. Try to avoid becoming infected: (1) If you are not required to read such writing, do not read it; (2) if you are required to read it, pause at every paragraph break and say (silently or aloud) “This is dreck.” Your subconscious will get the message; as a result, you will be less likely to imitate the dreck.

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.

Meaningless nouns can make you sound phony

Recently I published a post that described how some people try to enhance nouns by placing meaningless nouns after them. For example:

A crisis becomes a crisis situation.
Boarding becomes the boarding process.
Seafood becomes seafood solutions.
Flooding becomes a flooding issue.
An emergency becomes an emergency condition.

Here are five more examples:

A cause becomes a causal factor.
A workplace becomes a workplace setting.
Practice becomes practice exercises.
Preparation becomes preparation activities.
A login becomes a login experience.

This is not a natural way to write (or even speak). If you write like this, you’re probably just unconsciously imitating other writers. But beware: Those writers are poseurs. Adding meaningless nouns is a cheap trick that poseurs use in order to boost their credibility.

However, the trick rarely works. Most people can sense that there’s something wrong with the added nouns. That’s why, for example, you will occasionally overhear passengers at the airport making fun of the phrase, “the boarding process.”

The Takeaway: Don’t lard your sentences with meaningless nouns. Only semi-literates and zombies will accept that as normal writing; all others will think you’re a poseur, a scammer, or some other type of phony.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to Paul G. Henning for pointing out some of these examples.

Gobbledygook (5)

I’ve discussed gobbledygook in four previous posts (for example, here and here). Today I have another good example of gobbledygook for you.

It’s an article by James Kobielus, who works at IBM. In the article, Mr. Kobielus uses gobbledygook such as “the pivotal concept of a holistic customer journey.” He appears to be fond of trendy, overused and misused words (core, drive, experience, focus, issue and parse) and phrases (at the heart of, reality check, and subject matter expert).

Even his job title contains gobbledygook:

IBM Senior Program Director, Product Marketing, Big Data Analytics solutions

Not Big Data Analytics, mind you. Big Data Analytics solutions.

Many other users of gobbledygook do likewise; in an attempt to make topics (and indirectly themselves) sound more important, they add unnecessary nouns after other nouns:

seafood solutions
crisis situation
boarding process
flooding issue
emergency condition
strike action
clearance sale event
audience interactivity elements

You have to keep a close watch on these people; every time you turn your back they debase, dilute and corrupt the language a little more.

The Takeaway: Read the whole article; it’s a good example of how not to write. Don’t use gobbledygook. Shun those who do.

See disclaimer.

"Foot in Mouth" award for an MEP

A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) has received the “Foot in Mouth” gobbledygook award for 2013. Godfrey Bloom (pictured), Independent MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber (UK), was described as a “wince-inducing gaffe machine” by a spokesman for the Plain English Campaign, which sponsors the award.

The Takeaway: Take a look at the original news article. What this fellow says in public is far removed from what we know (recall?) as polite British speech.

See disclaimer.

Happy Birthday, Joan Didion.

Extreme gobbledygook

I thought you might enjoy seeing these two award-winning examples of extreme gobbledygook:

A British government bureaucracy that calls itself the “NHS Cheshire Warrington and Wirral Commissioning support organisation” wrote the worst gobbledygook* in 2012:

A unique factor of the NHS Cheshire Warrington and Wirral Commissioning support organisation is its systematised methodology for project and programme management of small, medium, large service re-design and implementation... Building in equality and risk impact assessments the options are taken through a process to arrive at the content for an output based specification and benefits foreseen as a result of the implementation

The service is inclusive of full engagement with Clinical Commissioning Groups who direct at decision-making points how they wish the proposal to be deployed (re-commmisson, de-commission or changes to current services/providers), and lastly an implementation team who see the service redesign through to evaluation and benefits realisation.

Mitt Romney, an American politician, spoke the worst gobbledygook** in 2012:

I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.

The Takeaway: If you fear that you may unwittingly publish gobbledygook, protect yourself as follows: Download and read The Gobbledygook Manifesto, by David Meerman Scott. And occasionally read award-winning gobbledygook on the website of the Plain English Campaign. These actions will re-sensitize you to gobbledygook and help prevent you from unconsciously imitating the written or spoken gobbledygook of the oblivious people around you.)


___________________

*According to the Plain English Campaign, which bestowed its 2012 annual “Golden Bull” award for written gobbledygook (pictured) on the the “NHS Cheshire Warrington and Wirral Commissioning support organisation” and on nine other organizations.

**According to the Plain English Campaign, which bestowed its 2012 annual “Foot in Mouth” award for spoken gobbledygook on Mr. Romney. The Campaign explained that this sample was merely one of “literally dozens” of Mr. Romney’s comments during 2012 that were worthy of the award.

See disclaimer.

In speech and in writing, be yourself

People who hear what you say or read what you write can’t help judging you by your diction and grammar. That’s because people usually assume that you have deliberately chosen your diction and grammar. So, if you unconsciously or unintentionally imitate a sociolect, your listeners or readers will assume that you are a member of the group that speaks that sociolect.

For example, poseurs speak and write gobbledygook. They do it in an effort to appear knowledgeable. But intelligent listeners and readers perceive that the gobbledygook is gobbledygook and therefore that the poseurs are poseurs.

Unfortunately, gobbledygook has become fashionable, and a lot of knowledgeable people are imitating the poseurs. Intelligent listeners and readers assume that these people are poseurs, too. So, if you are knowledgeable, don’t imitate poseurs.

Here are three more warnings:

If you are intelligent, don’t imitate bimbos.

If you are honest, don’t imitate shysters.

If you are straightforward, don’t imitate politicians.

The Takeaway: If you wish to be taken seriously, don’t imitate the sociolects of poseurs, bimbos, shysters or politicians. Be yourself. Talk like yourself. Write like yourself. You know you have the courage to do it. Do it.

See disclaimer.

“The Gobbledygook Manifesto,” by David Meerman Scott

On this blog, I have devoted five posts to explaining why empathy is the most important skill a marketing writer must have:

When a reader says your writing is not clear
Empathy for the non-technical reader
Writing can make or break the sale
Empathy always matters – sometimes a lot
The greatest error: failure to empathize

I have been intentionally frank. But you’re still with me, so I’m going to recommend another frank document about empathy. This document can boost your empathy. It can boost your ability to use the kind of language your buyers want to see and hear.

It’s The Gobbledygook Manifesto, by the renowned marketing strategist and bestselling author David Meerman Scott. It is a brief (10-page) and powerful appeal to marketing writers to stop using “superlative-laden, jargon-sprinkled hype” and start using “plain language” that tells buyers “what specific problems your product solves” – and to use this language all the time.

For many years, I supervised teams of marketing writers and editors. If The Gobbledygook Manifesto had existed back then, I would have made my people memorize it.

David says that many marketing writers don’t even aim their words at buyers:

“Because these writers don’t understand how their products solve customer problems, or are too lazy to write for buyers, they cover by explaining myriad nuances of how the product works and pepper this blather with industry jargon that sounds vaguely impressive.”

If that sentence does not describe the way you work, be proud and walk tall. You are one of the champions. But I still think you should read the manifesto. It could help you educate your colleagues and managers.

The Takeaway: Download The Gobbledygook Manifesto, by David Meerman Scott. Print it out and read it. Read it again every three months so you won’t backslide. And follow David’s blog – he frequently comments on gobbledygook in his posts, as in this recent example.