Quotations on thinking, speaking and writing (15)

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~George Orwell

“Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now [2010] paid handsomely to hide it.”
~Paul Craig Roberts

“Sometimes paranoia’s just having all the facts.”
~William S. Burroughs

“The whole purpose of culture is to get you to found your ethics on lies.”
~Stefan Molyneux (pictured)

“...dispassionate self-knowledge is not a quality held in much esteem by the majority of the human race...”
~Donald E. Westlake

The Takeaway: Keep an open mind. Have a great day.

See disclaimer.

Don’t abuse the preposition “to” (3)

Don’t abuse the preposition to. In other words, don’t try to force it to do the work of other prepositions. Previously, I posted examples (here and here) of this abuse. Here are more examples:

“How is cyberbullying different to [sic for from or than] other forms of bullying?” (Source)

“But development experts say there is a dark side to [sic for of] some ostensibly ‘green’ market initiatives: the appropriation of resources for biofuels production, carbon offsets, ecotourism and so on can have devastating consequences for local people.” (Source)

“Melissa Disney is... a distant relative to [sic for of] Walt Disney.” (Source)

“A 5-star Hotel that complies to [sic for with] all the standards” (Source)

The Takeaway: Be precise with your prepositions. It is a mark of a well-educated, well-read, careful writer. Need I say more?

See disclaimer.

Writing skills require maintenance

A new study shows that the readability of legal briefs significantly declined between 1969 and 2008. The study suggested that the lawyers believed their writing was not bad enough to affect the results of their cases and that they saw “no benefit to the time-consuming and difficult task of changing their writing styles.”

I would add: The lawyers, having decided not to do anything to improve their writing, wrongly assumed that their writing would not deteriorate because of that decision. They did not realize that all kinds of skills deteriorate unless maintained. This is why, for example, musicians practice every day of their lives.

The Takeaway: Like every American, you hear and read thousands of words of bad English every day. Unless you apply a little conscious effort, you will unconsciously assimilate more and more of that bad English as time goes by. Eventually you will sound indolent, effeminate, semi-literate and childish, like most Americans today. That may be good enough for Boobus Americanus. However, you and I are writers; it is not good enough for us. We have pride of craftsmanship.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to Cheryl Stephens for pointing out the article about the study.

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.

The backloaded sentence

Andrew McAfee has published an article titled “When Did Yoda Start Writing CEO Speeches?” The article explains why CEOs abuse the backloaded sentence (a sentence in which the writer makes the reader wait for important information until the end of the sentence). Here’s an excerpt:

In standard English the subject usually comes before the verb: the boy ran up the hill. One of the reasons Yoda sounds so otherworldly is that he often inverted this: run up the hill the boy did. A lot of business folk seem to be under his influence these days. Instead of saying “Our costs are rising” they’ll say “Things are not great right now, from a cost perspective.”

What’s going on here, I suspect, is that they know the overall sentiment they want to convey. In this case, it’s not a good one; costs are rising. So on the fly they construct a sentence that leads with the sentiment (things are not great) and backloads with the reason why (from a cost perspective).

The Takeaway: The backloaded sentence is not inherently bad; for example, you can use it occasionally for emphasis. However, it is bad to abuse it, as in the example above. By the way, notice that Andrew McAfee, like Seth Godin and Kyle Wiens, judges people’s character by their language. So do all intelligent readers (although the more sentimental ones deny they do). Always write for the intelligent reader, not the stupid reader. The stupid reader won’t know or care whether your writing is good or bad.

See disclaimer.