Verbosity equals Boring -- # 198

Verbosity

Information contained here was taken from: Book: Sheridan Baker, “The Complete Stylist”, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., (New York, 1966)

The disease: Verbosity.

Symptoms: severe inflation of the language, difficulty in following the point, extreme drowsiness. In short, boring.

Cause: too much passive voice.

Cure: make words count.

Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Take your subject seriously-if it is a serious subject-but take yourself with a grain of salt. Your attitude is the very center of your prose. If you take yourself too importantly, your readers will hear the swollen ego of the author in the tone. You’ll find your writing containing so many of’s and which’s and nouns clustered densely in passive constructions that you’ll lose your readers with the monotony and boredom.

Guard against the heavy sober-sided attitude that makes for wordiness and its side-kicks of obscurity, dullness, and anonymity. Don’t lose your personality and your voice in the monotone of passiveness.

Here is a typical, and actual case:

"Many biological journals, especially those which regularly publish new scientific names, now state in each issue the exact date of publication of the preceding issue. In dealing with journals which do not follow this practice, or with volumes which are issued individually, the biologist often needs to resort to indexes...in order to determine the actual date of publication of a particular name.

Note of publication of twice, and the three which’s. The longer you look at it the more useless little attendants you see. The voice is passive in spite of the author’s active effort’s. The of’s accompany extra nouns, publication repeating publish, for instance.

More than a third can be cut without touching the sense.

Many biological journals, especially those regularly publishing new scientific names, now give the date of each preceding issue. With journals not following this practice, and with some books, the biologist must turn to indexes...to date a particular name." (p. 161)

Most which’s can be cut, one way or another.

“A car which was going south” is “a car going south”; “a song which was popular last year is “a song popular last year.”

Be careful of these: who are, that was, which are.

If you need a relative clause, remember that. “A house that faces north is cool”
using a participle would save a word: “A house facing north is cool.” That is tolerable; which is not. Which should signal the afterthought. “The house, which faces north, is cool.”
A full sentence, each word in place and pulling its weight, is easy to read. It’s tight and smooth. But a sentence full of words is not. Words should count.

Sentences can be too short and dense, of course. Sometimes, thoughts need explanation. Many need the and’s and of’s. In fact, colloquial phrasing, which is as clear and unnoticed as a clean window, is usually longer than its formal equivalent: something to eat as compared to dinner.

“Shall we have something to eat?” is more friendly than the more economical “Shall we have dinner?” Giving our writing a bit of social warmth, even though we use more words, is not wordy if they pull with the rest of the sentence.
Sometimes, you need more words to say what you need to say better, clearer, friendlier. Just make the extra words count.

If someone tells you your story is too loose, too wordy, or too passive, what they are trying to tell you, in as gentle a way as possible, is the writing is boring. You may as well add too vague to the list, because if I can’t figure out what it’s saying, why read it?

I always learn something when I write a newsletter, because I search for information and ideas. I learned I use the word 'which' too much. I hope you all learned something too.

Your editor this week was,

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Your editor next week will be, me again! esprit

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Good News Of Special Interest

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