‘If any man wishes to write in a clear style …’

by Jack Posted on October 22, 2012

It was a bitterly cold winter’s day.  The wind was blowing straight from the Pole and every few minutes or so there was another shower of sleet.

A university don – the collar of his overcoat  turned high, the brim of his hat pulled low – was walking along the street and, as he passed the recessed doorway of a closed shop, a scruffy chap – bare-headed and wearing a threadbare jacket – reached out a grimy hand and asked plaintively if the don would lend him some spare change.

The don paused briefly, looked down his nose at the unfortunate fellow, and then said, sonorously: ‘To quote the great William Shakespeare: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”’

As the don resumed his journey, the beggar called after him: ‘And to quote the great D H Lawrence: “Bastard!”’

I think it was my late brother-in-law who first suggested to me that if you want to add gravitas to something commonplace – or just something commonsensical – attribute it to someone famous.  ‘Few people will argue with the words of Shakespeare, or Churchill, or Ionesco,’ he said.  (I think he was writing a paper on Ionesco at the time.)

And so, when someone tells me that they are having trouble writing something clearly and concisely, I have often found it useful to quote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

‘If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.’

Of course, I have no idea whether or not Goethe actually said this.  And, even if he did, it seems rather unlikely that he would have said it in English.  But it does make a lot of sense.

Posted in Better communication, Clarity, Plain English | Leave a comment

Not everything that you learn is useful immediately

by Jack Posted on October 16, 2012

I think I was 13 when I started trying to learn French.

My teacher was a former army captain who had spent several years in the south and west of France.  Beneath his slightly old-fashioned formality and upright military bearing, Max was both a gentleman and a scholar.  He was also an engaging raconteur.

He must have realised within the first few weeks of the school year that at least 23 of the 25 members of the class had little real interest in becoming fluent French speakers.  Our choice of French as our ‘foreign language’ option was influenced largely by the fact that the only other language on offer was Japanese.  And at least French used the Latin alphabet.

A typical French lesson began with a few new words and a few simple phrases.  The pen of my aunt and the hat of my uncle (both sur la table) seemed to provide the model.  And then, still with 30 minutes or so to go, Max would veer off into a fascinating account of some aspect of French culture.  Regional foods and wines often featured.  And so did scratchy recordings of French singers from the ‘thirties, ‘forties, and ‘fifties.  Then it was suddenly time to pack away our (unopened) textbooks and head to the next class.

By the end of the first term most of us had acquired the beginnings of a French vocabulary based around food ingredients, culinary techniques, grape varieties, and the wine producers of the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions.  Unfortunately, these words were only of limited use when it came to the end-of-year exams.

But then, many years later, I was invited to take part in a ‘chateau crawl’ through Medoc, St Estephe, Pauillac, and Margaux.  It was only then that I discovered just how useful my rather specialised French vocabulary was.

Merci.  Merci beaucoup, monsieur Max.

Posted in Better communication | Leave a comment

Something to think about

by Jack Posted on October 10, 2012

Longer ago than I care to remember, a friend of a friend tried to launch a monthly magazine that would be supported entirely by its cover price.  The idea was that the magazine would accept advertising but it would not rely on advertising for its survival.

The content was to be long journalism and short fiction.  And views from the Left and the Right were to be equally welcomed.  What the advertisers wanted didn’t matter.

The editor’s guiding philosophy was probably best summed up by the magazine’s strapline: ‘Something to think about’.  You may or may not agree with what this or that writer has to say, but it certainly gives you something to think about.

Unfortunately, after just two issues, the magazine folded.  The economics just didn’t stack up.

About five years later, I ran into the friend of a friend in London where she was editing a decidedly tabloid weekend magazine.  Over a glass of wine, I asked her if she ever had thoughts of resurrecting Freedom.

‘I think the days of quality journalism are almost gone,’ she said.  ‘For many publications the only thing that makes sense commercially is to run a few sensational shocker stories surrounded by what are essentially PR handouts.’

At the time, I thought that she was being overly pessimistic.  Now I’m not so sure.

Posted in Better communication | Leave a comment

Lunching alone

by Jack Posted on October 4, 2012

A former colleague tells the (cautionary) tale of being commissioned to write a document in support of a new marketing strategy.  The strategy itself was very simple.  But the marketing director – who needed to sell the strategy to his Board – wanted weighty support for the simplicity.

‘We need something substantial,’ he told my colleague.  ‘We need something serious.  I’m thinking 50 or 60 pages of serious.’

My colleague suggested that something short and to the point might be more appropriate.  ‘Perhaps just a page or two?  Clear and concise?  Something that’s easy to read, consider, and digest?’  But the marketing director was set on the idea of a document with the physical attributes of an old-fashioned telephone directory.

The document which my colleague eventually delivered was an impressive 52 pages long.  And, about two-thirds of the way down page 47, he slipped in a sentence that said: ‘If you’re still reading this, call me on [telephone number supplied] and I’ll be happy to shout you lunch at my favourite restaurant.’

For several days he waited for his phone to ring.  But it didn’t.  It seems that even the marketing director failed to get as far as page 47.

In the wise words of one of my early mentors: ‘When you have something important to say, say it as simply and succinctly as you can.  And then shut up.’

Posted in Better communication, Brevity, Clarity, Plain English | Leave a comment

The best word ever?

by Jack Posted on September 20, 2012

Lately, there have been a number of informal surveys and discussions aimed at trying to find ‘the best word ever’ – a sort of Number One on the hit parade of the English lexicon.  Unfortunately, the criteria by which the candidate words are to be judged have been left largely to those taking part in the various surveys.  And everyone seems to be using slightly different criteria.

Some respondents appear to favour utility, throwing their weight behind humble everyday words like ‘us’, ‘family’, ‘home’, ‘love’ and ‘friendship’.  For others, the sound of the word is all important.  ‘Smooth’, ‘harmonious,’ ‘crepuscular’, ‘luxurious’, and ‘opulent’ are some of the words chosen for the ease with which they trip – mellifluously – off the tongue.

Many people have nominated multisyllabic words that lean towards the whimsical – flibbertigibbet, for example, and tickety-boo.  And a surprising number of words temporarily borrowed from other languages have made it onto some of the long lists.  Both maquillage and schadenfreude have garnered support even though neither word has yet been fully adopted into the English language.

In one of the few surveys to reach something of a conclusion, the final shortlist included ‘gherkin’, ‘kerfuffle’, ‘diphthong’, and ‘hornswoggle’.  And the winner was … drumroll, please … ‘diphthong’.  Goodness knows why.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

If you haven’t got anything to say…

by Jack Posted on September 13, 2012

Here’s the bottom line: if you haven’t got anything to say don’t say it.

We have just conducted a review of the various ‘corporate’ editing projects KiwiStreet has worked on over the past 12 months.  Most were reports of one sort or another.  There were also several proposals, and a number of policy documents.

Aside from the rich variety, what struck us was the fact that, in every single case, the edited document contained fewer words than the draft document.  In some cases, the ‘shrinkage’ was a matter of 10 or 15 percent.  But in other cases it was closer to 40 or 50 percent.

One of my colleagues suggested – quite charitably, I thought – that this may be because many corporate writers do their thinking ‘on paper’.  Get it all down; then polish it up later.

I’m a little less charitable.  I think that many writers don’t really have much to say in the first place.  But they figure that if they say what little they have to say in a sufficiently complicated fashion, and if they can work in a few vogue terms and plenty of jargon, they’ll get credit for having said something without actually saying much at all.

There is, however, a flaw in this approach: the ‘padding’ is almost always heavy going.  The reader almost always ends up skip-reading, keeping one eye open for a possible diamond while trying to avoid getting sucked into the dun-coloured quicksand.  And, under such circumstances, what few diamonds there may be are often overlooked.

If you don’t have anything to say, the best strategy is to simply avoid saying it.  Don’t get hung up on the word count or the ‘thud factor’.  Short, concise documents can be very effective documents.

Posted in Better communication, Brevity, Clarity | Leave a comment

All in a day’s work

by Jack Posted on August 23, 2012

A friend of ours reckons that he has yet to meet a man who does not consider himself to be a better than average driver and a better than average lover.

I sometimes feel that my own experience of would-be writers in the corporate world is somewhat similar.  Not only does the vast majority consider themselves to be better than average writers – often way better than average – they also consider themselves to be faster than average writers.

‘I can type at about 60 words a minute, so that’s north of 3,000 words an hour,’ one manager said recently.  It was his rationale for allowing only 30 minutes to prepare a board paper.

Mary Beard, a professor of classics at Cambridge and the author of a very readable blog for the Times Literary Supplement, recently invited writers to ‘fess up’ to what they considered to be a satisfactory day’s work.

Some thought that as few as 500 finished words was a respectable effort.  (That was Graham Greene’s daily quota.)  Most aimed for somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 words.  And a few ambitious souls aimed for 3,000 or more.  But that was 3,000 words a day, not 3,000 words an hour.  And these were professional writers.

Effective writing involves thinking, writing, and revising.  (One writer we know cheerfully admits to ‘throwing away’ at least two-thirds of the words from every first draft she has ever written.)

When you sit down to prepare a board paper or something similar, you have probably already done quite a bit of the thinking.  But it is almost inevitable that more thinking will be required.  And then there’s the writing: selecting just the right words and putting them into just the right order to achieve just the right effect.  And, finally, there’s the revising – which may well take longer that the initial writing.

So next time you are faced with the prospect of having to put together a well-thought-out, coherent, and persuasive document, it might be useful to stop thinking like a sales manager or an HR manager or a finance manager.  And definitely stop thinking like a typist.

Instead, you need to start thinking like a professional writer.  And that means allowing yourself more than just an hour or so to think, write, and revise.

Posted in Better communication, Clarity | Leave a comment

If you mean what you say …

by Jack Posted on August 16, 2012

If you mean what you say, why not write what you say?

I used to work with a woman who talked a good talk.  In fact, she talked a brilliant talk.  Her thoughts were organised.  Her words were well chosen.  And her enthusiasm was infectious.

But, more often than not, when she came to put her talk down on paper, it all turned to custard.

Somewhere along the way – maybe at primary school, maybe at university, maybe just in the school of life – she seems to have picked up the notion that spoken English and written English are two entirely different languages.  In her mind, the relationship between spoken English and written English seems to have been akin to the relationship between Welsh and Swahili.

I was reminded of her recently when I came across an old copy of one of her missives.  In response to someone who had offered a suggestion, she wrote:

The idea which you have submitted does, superficially, appear to have some merit, notwithstanding that the Committee may consider that it lies outside the agreed scope of the current deliberations.  Nevertheless, I will endeavour to place a request before the Committee seeking that the Committee makes time when an opportunity arises to give your idea due consideration in a timely and appropriate manner.

Flabby, bureaucratic gobbledygook.

And yet I’m pretty sure that, had she responded in spoken English, she would have said something like: ‘That’s an interesting idea.  I’ll ask the committee to consider it.’

So why didn’t she write that?  It would have said what she needed to say.  And it would have been so much easier to read.

Posted in Better communication, Clarity, Plain English | Leave a comment

And another thing …

by Jack Posted on August 9, 2012

Is it OK to start a sentence with ‘And’?

Well, yes, it is OK.  And, on occasion, it can also be very useful.

And yet, about once a month, someone challenges KiwiStreet’s use of this humble connective conjunction.  Almost without exception, the authority for their challenge is some all-but-forgotten high school English teacher.

It does not reflect well on the teacher.  Nor does it reflect well on the teacher of the teacher.  Good writers have been starting sentences with ‘And’ since at least Anglo Saxon times.  The King James Version of The Bible makes frequent use of And.  And so did Shakespeare.

Many teachers also seem to have convinced their pupils that ‘but’ has no place at the beginning of a sentence.  But, again, there is no reason why it should not be used to start a sentence.  Indeed, ‘but’ can be a very useful word with which to introduce a balancing statement.  ‘All Animals have Sense,’ John Locke noted way back in 1690.  ‘But a Dog is an Animal.’

I am not suggesting that you disregard every grammatical ‘rule’ that you learned at school.  Some supposed rules do play a useful part in ensuring clear, concise communication.  But many do not.  Many are just the quirky personal preferences of fuddy-duddy pedants.  Those ‘rules’ you may safely ignore.

Posted in Better communication, Clarity | Leave a comment