That is the theme of this chapter, and indeed of this book. Look after the words and style will look after itself. This does consist in part of doing what the fishmonger’s friend did. Every word should be scrutinised. If it is not a working word, adding sense to a sentence, it should be struck out. There are many occasions when the mere shedding of surplus fat invigorates the sentence. At other times concise writing requires substituting one word for another word or group of words. It is the marriage of economy and accuracy which is wanted: the right words in the right order.
Newspapers are supposed to be jealous of their space. Yet every day, by slack writing, thousands of words are wasted. (It is worst on North American and Indian newspapers; it is somewhat better, but not much, on Australian newspapers; and best, but a long way from what it might be, in British newspapers.) This wastage means the loss of many columns which could be used for news. But the central fact to grasp about text editors is that they are not engaged simply on a space-saving exercise. Sentences carrying dross not only take up more space than they should. They weary eye and mind. They obscure meaning.
Economy has to be pursued with intelligence. Indiscriminate culling is no virtue. Some writers build monstrous adjectival phrases in an effort to save on prepositions. It is breathless and unclear:
After a No. 10 Downing Street call, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook flew last night to Tel Aviv to seek a new peace plan agreement.
Did they call him?
Modifiers help economical writing, but strung together like sausages they no longer resemble prose. Some newspapers and magazines even strike out the definite and indefinite articles. It is sometimes done to avoid opening with ‘a’ or ‘the’ or beginning several sentences with the same article. The correct answer is to change some of the sentence structure. The definite and indefinite articles are essential to a sentence. They define the subject. Merely omitting them invites brutal ambiguity:
He promised delivery to the chief executive and managing director.
Did he promise it to one man with two titles or to two men?
If concise writing requires more thought than that, it can be helped by fidelity to certain principles. To call them rules would be a disservice to the flexibility of English and the ingenuity of those who write it. The principles can be ‘bent’ by those who know how. If a shrill note creeps into the advocacy of those principles in the following pages, this note of latitude may be summoned in relief and the dogmatism excused, I hope, as exasperation in the face of the enemy.
Use Specific Words
This means calling a spade a spade and not a factor of production. Abstract words should be chased out in favour of specific, concrete words. Sentences should be full of bricks, beds, houses, cars, cows, men and women. Detail should drive out generality. And everything should be related to human beings. The great escape should be made from ‘mere intellectualism, with its universals and essences, to concrete particulars, the smell of human breath, the sound of voices, the stir of living’.7
Text editors should always aim to make the words bear directly on the reader. People can recognise themselves in stories about particulars. The abstract is another world. It requires effort of imagination to transport ourselves there. The writer should bring it to us. Economic and political stories abound with abstractions which seem incapable of such translation, but it can be done if the text editors will ‘follow it out to the end of the line’, in the words of Turner Catledge of the New York Times. At the end of the line of every seemingly abstract proposal there is a group and an individual.
A ‘domestic accommodation improvement programme’ comes out as Government money for people willing to spend more of their own on house repairs. The ‘deterioration of the traffic situation’ comes out as your partner caught in a traffic jam taking the children to school. An ‘improvement in workers’ facilities’ comes out as a new canteen with sausage and eggs at £1.50; the ‘increased incidence of cinemagoing’ is more people going to the cinema; an ‘inevitable amount of redundancy’ is the sack for sixty-six workers.
This advice is on two levels. It is about abstract words and it is about abstract stories. I recognise, of course, that there are times when the general, abstract word is a saver of space, that human knowledge proceeds by the accumulation of detail into the satisfaction of a generality. There are stories which must be carried on in large part in abstractions. But in both instances the abstraction should be enriched by the particular. The abstract word should be given flesh and the abstract story should be spiced with examples. If we are invited to read about inflation we should first be aroused by a reference to prices in the shops; a report on Britain’s fashion exports to Scandinavia might better start with the dresses the Swedish women are wearing. The story may have to be carried on in terms of abstractions like exports, credits and design, but the reader should be borne up by particular examples.
Official departments all over the world are great manufacturers of the abstract. So uniform is the language, so devoid of human life, that there must be an electronic device which expunges any suggestion that people in offices with document files are trying to make decisions about other people. Wherever possible, people are rendered into abstractions or even machinery. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge tell a story of a junior official who once drafted a public announcement beginning, ‘The Minister has decided to inaugurate a statistical section’.8 It was suggested to him that the appointment of one officer scarcely constituted a section. Wisely he agreed. He altered the draft to read: ‘The Minister has decided to inaugurate the nucleus of a statistical section’.
There should be a reverse electronic detector in newspaper offices which changes all the abstractions back again into people. Too many of them get into print.
The weakness of the next example (left) in an American local daily is that no readers think of themselves as violators. In the revised version (right) the first three words tell the readers that this might be about them.
Fines up to $50 and imprisonment up to 30 days could be placed against a violator if a mandatory sprinkling ban has to be imposed by the County Water Authority.
Sprinkling your lawn could put you in jail for 30 days or cost you a $50 fine if the Water Authority has to ban it.
And here is another American example:
The Blue Cross insurance director said that data represents the first instance in which utilisation experience of a large prepayment carrier in covering in-patient mental illness has been analysed.
This probably means that the figures give the first chance to see what happens when people are invited to insure heavily against going into mental hospital.
Often it is hard to know what the official language means. A negative decision is wrapped up as a positive:
The non-compensable evaluation heretofore assigned certain veterans for their service-connected disability is confirmed and continued.
That means that veterans whose physical condition had not changed would not get any money.
Writing with specific words is generally shorter as well as more interesting. A letter-writer to The Times once told how he asked a Government department for a book and had been ‘authorised to acquire the work in question by purchase through the ordinary trade channels’, i.e. buy it.9 On the left is an example of abstraction in a letter to me; the rewritten version on the right saves 62 words.
We are all aware of the significant need to maintain uppermost in the mind of mankind the stark need of avoiding bloody international conflict. One method by which this can be nurtured is to revive the solemn aspect of the great loss of life which has resulted from such catastrophic struggles, within the theatres of war. The attachment is associated with such an endeavour … I would appreciate a directive to your staff to review the attachment for the purpose of orienting this information so as to evolve a reasonably newsworthy article through your newspaper toward the end stated above.
Men need reminding of the horrors of war. One way to do it is to honour th
ose who died and I would appreciate it if you could use the attached information for a report on our ideas.
The advice to use specific language is not a trick of journalism. All great writing focuses on the significant details of human life. Compare Herbert Spencer’s concoction in the left-hand column with the original language of literature:
In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of their penal code will be severe.
In proportion as men delight in battles, bull fights and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, burning and the rack.
Nelson’s signal ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’, lives on. Neither the sentence nor the English fleet would have survived if he had signalled ‘It is the national expectation that all serving personnel will complete their tasks to satisfaction’.
Fowler, an acknowledged authority on English usage, would have identified that as periphrasis – putting things in a roundabout way. Other people say pleonasm, which is an awkward Greek word, or diffuseness, verbiage, circumlocution, padding or just plain wordiness. Whatever the disease, it can be checked early on because it so quickly exhibits as a symptom abstract nouns such as
amenities, activities, operation, purpose, condition, case, character, facilities, circumstances, nature, disposition, proposition, purposes, situation, description, issue, indication, regard, reference, respect, death, connection, instance, eventuality, neighbourhood.
In advanced cases there are strings of such nouns depending on one another and on compound prepositions such as in favour of, the purposes of, in connection with, with reference to, with a view to. Here (right) is Fowler’s translation of just such a statement:
The accident was caused through the dangerous nature of the spot, the hidden character of the side road and the utter absence of any warning or danger signal.
The accident happened because the spot was dangerous, the side road hidden and there was no warning.
Newspapers are full of such irritants as the left-handed version. An article picked up at random writes about natural gas with this succession of phrases:
Strategic question, the central issue, the open question, the size of the problem, the circumstances, certain questions, the most troublesome issue, the question of storage, the problem, the major decision, its immediate problem, far more real an issue is the question, further development, the position, energy picture, a question of policy, overall development, problems of achieving co-ordination …
It rounds off with: ‘The issue is so far off that for the moment it remains something of a red herring’.
What follows now is a list of other newspaper examples. Each time a writer is about to use these abstractions, or a text editor to pass them, each should ask what the words stand for. Words stand for ideas, objects and feelings. Vagueness comes from the failure to marry word to idea. What is ‘an issue’, what is ‘development’, what are ‘facilities’?
Accommodation
The theatre has seating accommodation for 600.
The theatre seats 600.
More people than the hall could accommodate were crowded into …
An impossibility. Again it probably means seat.
Activity
They enjoyed recreational activity.
They liked games.
The king agreed to limited exploration activity.
The king agreed to limited exploration.
Basis
He agreed to play on an amateur basis.
He agreed to play as an amateur.
They accepted employment on a part-time basis.
They accepted part-time work.
Capability
The aircraft had a long-range capability.
The aircraft had a long range.
Conditions/Character
The garden was of a tangled character.
The garden was tangled.
The Irish were forced to live in slum conditions.
The Irish were forced to live in slums.
The Argentine delegate said the claims were of a far-reaching character.
The Argentine delegate said the claims were far-reaching.
The survivors were in a desperate condition.
The survivors were desperate.
Warmer conditions will prevail.
It will be warmer.
Adverse climatic conditions.
Bad weather.
Extent
The problem is of a considerable extent.
It’s a big problem.
Facilities/Amenities
Shopping facilities/amenities.
Shops.
Car parking facilities/amenities.
Car park(s).
Ablution facilities/amenities.
Wash-basins (rooms).
Fact that
In spite of the fact that … due to the fact that … because of the fact that … on account of the fact that.
Although; since; or because.
Field
A further vital field in which Government policy is strangling initiative is the export field.
Government policy is also strangling exporters’ initiative.
Those invading barbarians, issue and problem, often in league with the question, run through newspapers everywhere, stealing space and laying waste to living images. This is one of the places where adjectives can be called to duty. The verb, too, can put the invaders to rout.
Issue/problem
Another issue concerning the governors is the problem of lateness which has been increasing among the sixth form.
The governors are also worried by increasing lateness among sixth-formers.
On the troublesome issue of school meals, the council decided to delay a decision until April.
The council put off the troublesome school-meals decision until April.
Far more real an issue in the long term is the question of what happens if further gas discoveries are made in the old or new concessions or what happens if they are not. The position will become clearer in several years’ time when further exploration is done. Then the Gas Council must decide what to do with any further reserves and how fast it should deplete its present resources. More gas and/or faster depletion of existing gas would greatly change the energy picture in Britain. Gas would flow to the bulk markets, displacing coal as well as oil. Price would again become a question of policy, as would the possibilities of electricity generation.
What if more gas were found in the next few years? The Gas Council would have to decide on a rate of use, for gas could flow to the bulk market, displacing coal as well as oil. The arguments on price, and about using gas to make electricity, would be re-opened.
Operations
Building operations.
Operations is quite unnecessary. Building/mining is enough.
Participation
The tenants were seeking participation in the making of price policy.
The tenants wanted to help decide the rents.
Position
The Prime Minister said the sanctions position will then be reviewed.
The Prime Minister said sanctions will then be reviewed.
Proposition
Inflationary land costs had made it a completely uneconomic proposition to rebuild.
Rising land prices had made it too costly to rebuild.
Purposes
Land for development purposes.
Land for building.
An instrument for surgical purposes.
A surgical instrument.
A committee for administrative purposes.
A committee to run it.
Question
Over the question of supply, the major decision in the near future will be that of a third terminal.
The major supply decision in the near future will be on building a third terminal.
Situation
The unemployment situation has escalated.
Unemployment is higher.
The teacher supply situation is serious.
Teachers are scarce.
The visit of the Pope to Mexico City has created an ongoing chaos situation.
The Pope’s visit has created chaos (what kind?).
An emergency meeting will be called to discuss the situation whereby 900 tins of suspect corned beef were accidentally distributed.
An emergency meeting will discuss how 900 tins of suspect corned beef were accidentally sold.
Use of
The Citizens Committee said the use of buses should be stepped up.
The Citizens Committee said more buses should be used.
The use of 37 gardens has been volunteered by their owners.
Essential English Page 5