face to face (or even over the phone) we can instantly correct mistakes and clarify misunderstandings, provide subtle nuances with a smile, a laugh or a shrug, add emphasis with a frown or tone of voice. But when we write something, we have just one shot to hit the bullseye so that whoever reads it understands it – precisely. Two millennia ago the Roman orator Cicero offered a pretty good tip: the point of writing is not just to be understood, but to make it impossible to be misunderstood.
The ability to write well is a valuable, life-enriching asset and Collins Good Writing Skills will help you towards this goal. Much of what you will read is the lifetime word wisdom of a veteran national newspaper sub-editor. Sub-editors are a newspaper’s front-line defence against inaccurate, ungrammatical, long-winded, repetitious and pompous writing – and thus the reader’s best friends. A group of Daily Telegraph sub-editors decided that a new shorter 60-word police caution was still too ponderous and proceeded to distil the same meaning into 37 words. Here is the 60-word version, devised by a Scotland Yard committee:
You do not have to say anything. But if you do not now mention something which you later use in your defence, the court may decide that your failure to mention it now strengthens the case against you. A record will be made of anything you say and it may be given in evidence if you are brought to trial.
And here is the revised, sub-edited version, clearer and shorter:
You need say nothing, but if you later use in your defence something withheld now, the court could hold this against you. A record of what you say might be used in evidence if you are tried.
No long or obtuse words, no flowery phrases – just crystal-clear prose that makes few demands on a reader’s time, holds the reader’s interest throughout and simply can’t be misunderstood. That is the kind of model this book recommends, although you will also be amused and appalled by dozens of other masterpieces of a vastly different kind – masterpieces of drivel and obscurity to drive home the sort of writing to avoid.
Into the jungle, with machete and pen
But first, let us be brave. We are about to hack our way through a jungle. The dense, tangled world of obscure and impenetrable language. Officialese. Circumlocution. Tautology. Gobbledegook. Jargon. Verbosity, pomposity and cliché. All the ugly growths that prevent us from understanding a piece of writing.
Perhaps the obstacle is a notice from our bank, the district council, the water, gas or electricity supply company, which for all we know might have a serious effect on our future. Or it may be a newspapaper or magazine article that makes us stop in mid-sentence to realise that we do not understand its meaning. Or perhaps it’s an advertisement for a job we might fancy . . . if only we knew what the wording meant.
This book, however, is not intended to help the baffled reader to fight through the thickets of spiky legalisms, prickly abstractions and tangled verbosity. Rather it is a guide to help you, the writer of the letter, memo, report or CV, to make sure your writing is clear of such obstacles to understanding.
Don’t be a sloppy copycat!
In business and bureaucracies, it is fatally easy to fall in with the writing habits of those around you: sloppy, vague and clumsy.
Yet most of us realise that a letter, memo or report from someone who knows how to write clearly and with precision is obviously more welcome, and read more keenly, than a dreary wodge of waffle and wittering.
Your own writing will be most effective when it is clear and direct. People who write in a straighforward way always shine out against the dim grey mass of Sloppies.
To be a good writer you have to write tighter
The usual advice on clear expression is: ‘Write as you speak’. But we have already concluded that unless you have special gifts or professional skills, this is virtually impossible. Perhaps the advice should be amended to: ‘Write as you speak – say what you mean, but make it tighter’.
One simple way to accomplish this is always to think economically. Less is often more. Some of the greatest thoughts and concepts in history have been expressed in surprisingly few words. The Ten Commandments are expressed in just 130 words; the Sermon on the Mount in 320, Kipling’s poem ‘If’ is less than 300 words long and the American Declaration of Independence was made in 485 words.
On the other hand a recent EEC internal memo on aubergine production and marketing issued in Brussels hit a word count of 9,800! Of all these, which would you think is the most readable?
The same applies to words: shorter is better. Many famous writers of the past were experts at saying what they meant in very few words, and simple, often one-syllable words at that. Milton and Shakespeare were deft users of simple words but for beauty achieved through sheer simplicity it is hard to beat Robert Herrick’s The Daffodils:
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or any thing.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew
Ne’er to be found again.
With the exception of just a few words (decay, away, summer’s, etc) every word of this stanza is of a single syllable, perhaps symbolic of the brevity of life, and it is a model that every writer could aspire to.
Of course economy of expression isn’t everything and it can be misleading to argue the toss between long and short words, concrete or abstract nouns, active or passive voices. What is important is selecting the right word, and putting it in the right place for the right reason.
Before you begin to write . . . THINK!
Another English writer, William Cobbett, declared that ‘He who writes badly thinks badly’. You could usefully reverse this. A minute’s thought before a minute’s writing is advice worth thinking about, perhaps on the following lines:
What do I want to say?
Am I making just one main point, or several?
If several, what’s the order of importance?
You may find it worthwhile to jot down your points before starting your letter, or report, or story. Once you’ve organised your material you can then concentrate on expressing it in writing, getting the right words in the right places.
When you’ve completed your writing – and this is the vital bit – read it through and decide, as critically
