{"id":670,"date":"2012-10-22T12:38:13","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T23:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=670"},"modified":"2012-10-24T09:55:05","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T20:55:05","slug":"if-any-man-wishes-to-write-in-a-clear-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=670","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If any man wishes to write in a clear style \u2026\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It was a bitterly cold winter\u2019s day.\u00a0 The wind was blowing straight from the Pole and every few minutes or so there was another shower of sleet.<\/p>\n

A university don \u2013 the collar of his overcoat\u00a0 turned high, the brim of his hat pulled low \u2013 was walking along the street and, as he passed the recessed doorway of a closed shop, a scruffy chap \u2013 bare-headed and wearing a threadbare jacket \u2013 reached out a grimy hand and asked plaintively if the don would lend him some spare change.<\/p>\n

The don paused briefly, looked down his nose at the unfortunate fellow, and then said, sonorously: \u2018To quote the great William Shakespeare: \u201cNeither a borrower nor a lender be.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

As the don resumed his journey, the beggar called after him: \u2018And to quote the great D H Lawrence: \u201cBastard!\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

I think it was my late brother-in-law who first suggested to me that if you want to add gravitas to something commonplace \u2013 or just something commonsensical \u2013 attribute it to someone famous.\u00a0 \u2018Few people will argue with the words of Shakespeare, or Churchill, or Ionesco,\u2019 he said.\u00a0 (I think he was writing a paper on Ionesco at the time.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2018If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, I have no idea whether or not Goethe actually said this.\u00a0 And, even if he did, it seems rather unlikely that he would have said it in English.\u00a0 But it does make a lot of sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a bitterly cold winter\u2019s day.\u00a0 The wind was blowing straight from the Pole and every few minutes or so there was another shower of sleet. A university don \u2013 the collar of his overcoat\u00a0 turned high, the brim … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}