Plain Words Read online

  Undue and unduly seem to be words that have the property of taking the reason prisoner. ‘There is no cause for undue alarm’ is a phrase I have seen used in all sorts of circumstances by all sorts of people, from a government spokesman about the plans of the enemy to a headmistress on the occurrence of a case of polio. It is, I suppose, legitimate to say ‘Don’t be unduly alarmed’, though I should not myself find much reassurance in it. But ‘there is no cause for undue alarm’ differs little, if at all, from ‘there is no cause for alarm for which there is no cause’, and that hardly seems worth saying. Unduly has of course its own proper job to do, and does it in a sentence of this kind: ‘The speech was not unduly long for so important an occasion’.

  As some adjectives seem to attract unnecessary adverbs, so do some nouns attract unnecessary adjectives. I have mentioned consideration’s fondness for the company of active, and I shall later refer to the inseparable companionship of alternative and accommodation. Danger is another word that is often given support it does not need, generally real or serious.

  The special needs of children under 5 require as much consideration as those of children aged 5–7, and there is a serious danger that they will be overlooked in these large schools … There is a real danger … that the development of the children will be unduly forced …

  Here we have serious, real and unduly all used superfluously. Serious is prompted by a feeling that danger always needs adjectival support, and real is presumably what grammarians call ‘elegant variation’: an effort made to avoid repeating the same word.* Unduly is superfluous because the word forced itself contains the idea of undue. Real danger should be reserved for contrast with imaginary danger, as, for instance, ‘Some people fear so-and-so but the real danger is so-and-so’. These things may seem trivial, but nothing is negligible that is a symptom of loose thinking.

  Vague adjectives of intensification like considerable, appreciable and substantial are too popular. None of these three should be used without three questions being asked. Do I need an adjective at all? If so, would a more specific adjective not be better? Or, failing that, which of these three (with their different shades of meaning) is most apt? If those who write ‘This is a matter of considerable urgency’ were to ask themselves these questions, they would realise that ‘This is urgent’ serves them better. And those who write ‘A programme of this magnitude will necessarily take a considerable period’ will find it more effective to say ‘a long time’. Strong words like urgent, danger, crisis, disaster, fatal, grave, paramount and essential lose their force if used too often. Reserve them for strong occasions, and then let them stand on their own legs, without adjectival or adverbial support.

  It would be a fairly safe bet that respective (or respectively) is wrongly or unnecessarily used in legal and official writing more often than any other word in the language. It has one simple, straightforward use, and that is to link up subjects and objects where more than one is used with a single verb. Thus, if I say ‘Men and women wear trousers and skirts’, you are left in doubt which wears which—which is no more than the truth nowadays. But if I add the word respectively, I allot (at the risk of being misleading) the trousers to the men and the skirts to the women. It can also be used in a harmlessly distributive sense, as in the sentence ‘local authorities should survey the needs of their respective areas’. But it contributes nothing to the sense here. There is no risk of local authorities thinking that they are being told to survey one another’s areas. Anyway, it is neater to write ‘Each local authority should survey the needs of its area’. Respective and respectively are unnecessarily or wrongly used in a sentence far more often than they are used correctly, and I advise you to leave them alone. You can always get by without them. Here is a sentence that demonstrates one of the many traps set by this capricious word. The writer has tried to make it distribute two things among three, and so left the reader guessing.

  The Chief Billeting Officer of the Local Authority, the Regional Welfare Officer of the Ministry of Health, and the Local Officer of the Ministry of Labour and National Service will be able to supplement the knowledge of the Authority on the needs arising out of evacuation and the employment of women respectively.

  It is as though one were to say ‘Men and women wear trousers and skirts and knickers respectively’. Who has the knickers?

  But any excessive fondness the official may have for respective and respectively is as nothing compared with the fascination they exercise on lawyers. These are the opening words of a coal-mining lease:

  This indenture witnesseth that in consideration of the rents reservations and covenants hereinafter respectively reserved and contained they the said A, B and C according to their several and respective shares estates rights and interests do hereby grant to the W. Company the several mines of coal called respectively X, Y and Z and also the liberty to lay down any tramroads railroads or other roads and to connect such roads trams and railroads respectively with any other roads of similar character respectively.

  Five in this small compass, with none of them doing any good, and some doing positive harm! The person who drafted this lease seems to have used the word in much the same way as the psalmist uses Selah, flinging it down light-heartedly whenever there was the least sense of having tramped on long enough without one. A recent example, taken from a department circular, shows the magnetism of this word: ‘Owing to the special difficulty of an apportionment of expenditure between (1) dinners and (2) other meals and refreshments respectively …’. Having taken elaborate care to arrange the sentence so as to avoid the need for respectively, the writer found the lure of it irresistible after all.

  Definite and definitely must be a good second to respective and respectively in any competition for the lead in adjectives and adverbs used unnecessarily. It can hardly be supposed that the adverb in the injunction — ‘local authorities should be definitely discouraged from committing themselves’—would make any difference to the official who had to carry it out. The distinction between discouraging a local authority definitely and merely discouraging it is too fine for most of us. Other examples are:

  This is definitely harmful to the workers’ health.

  The recent action of the committee in approving the definite appointment of four home visitors.

  This has caused two definite spring breakages to loaded vehicles.

  Sir Alan Herbert wrote in Punch in 1936 that he would give a prize ‘to the first Foreman of the Jury to announce a verdict of “Definitely Guilty,” and another to the judge who informs the prisoner that he will be “definitely hanged by the neck till he is very definitely dead” ’.

  It is wise to be sparing of very. If it is used too freely it ceases to have any meaning. It must be used with discrimination to be effective. Other adverbs of intensification, like necessarily and inevitably, are also apt to do more harm than good unless you want to lay stress on the elements of necessity or inevitability. An automatic inevitably, contributing nothing to sense, is common:

  The Committees will inevitably have a part to play in the development of the service.

  The ultimate power of control which flows inevitably from the agency relationship.

  Irresistibly reminded is on the way to becoming a cliché, especially useful to after-dinner speakers who want to drag in an irrelevant story, but by no means confined to them.

  Other intrusive words are incidentally, specific and particular. In conversation, incidentally (like actually and definitely) is often a noise without meaning. In writing it is an apology for irrelevance, sometimes unnecessary or even ambiguous, as here: ‘Dennis Brain will play horn concertos by Haydn and Mozart, both incidentally written to order’. Is it incidental to the announcer’s announcement that the concertos were written to order, or to the working practices of Haydn and Mozart?

  Particular intrudes (though perhaps more in a certain type of oratory than in writing) as an unnecessary reinforcement of a demonstrative pronoun:

  No arr
angements have yet been made regarding moneys due to this particular country.

  We would point out that availabilities of this particular material are extremely limited.

  On the same day on which you advised the Custodian of the existence of this particular debt.

  So much fun has been made of the common use of literally in the sense of ‘not literally but metaphorically’ that it is perhaps hardly worthwhile to make more. But it would be a pity not to record some of the choicer blossoms from a recent flowering of this perennial in the correspondence columns of The Times:

  (In an account of a tennis match) Miss X literally wiped the floor with her opponent.

  (A comment by Punch on a statement in a newspaper that throughout a certain debate Mr Gladstone had sat ‘literally glued to the Treasury bench’) ‘That’s torn it,’ said the Grand Old Man, as he literally wrenched himself away to dinner.

  (Of a certain horse) It literally ran away with the Two Thousand Guineas.

  (Of a rackets player) He literally blasted his opponent out of the court.

  M. Clemenceau literally exploded during the argument.

  He died literally in harness.

  VERBOSITY IN PREPOSITIONS

  In all utility writing today, official and commercial, the simple prepositions we have in such abundance tend to be forgotten and replaced by groups of words more imposing perhaps, but less precise. The commonest of these groups are:

  As regards

  As to

  In connection with

  In regard to

  In relation to

  In respect of

  In the case of

  Relative to

  With reference to

  With regard to

  They are useful in their proper places, but are often made to serve merely as clumsy devices to save a writer the labour of selecting the right preposition. In the collection that follows, the right preposition is added in brackets:

  A firm timetable in relation to the works to be undertaken should be drawn up. (for)

  It has been necessary to cause many dwellings to be disinfested of vermin, particularly in respect of the common bed-bug. (of)

  The Authority are fully conscious of their responsibilities in regard to the preservation of amenities. (for)

  It will be necessary to decide the priority which should be given to nursery provision in relation to other forms of education provision. (over)

  The rates vary in relation to the age of the child. (with)

  Coupons without restrictions as to how you should spend them. (on)

  There may be difficulties with regard to the provision of suitable staff. (in)

  Similar considerations apply with regard to application for a certificate. (to)

  The best possible estimate will be made at the conference as to the total number of houses which can be completed in each district during the year. (of)

  Note. If Gowers’s examples above had been written today, it would be unsurprising to find the phrase in terms of used for all of them (‘A firm timetable in terms of the works to be undertaken …’, ‘particularly in terms of the common bed-bug’, and so on). In terms of is now widely used to mean not only for, of, over, with, on, in and to, but also about, towards, against, and, by, including and because, as well as for example. And sometimes it means nothing. It circulates in what Gowers called the ‘highest places’. In 1995, the Committee on Standards in Public Life gave as its very first principle, under the heading ‘Selflessness’, that ‘Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest’. It would have been enough to remind the venal public servant that official decisions should be taken ‘solely in the public interest’.

  The vagueness of in terms of is demonstrated by the following extract from a ‘meta-evaluation’, by a professor of public sector evaluation, of an external review of multiple other evaluations of a public body:

  The timing of the technical review process has limited its value in terms of improving individual evaluation reports. Because it has been undertaken after a draft evaluation report has been produced, there has been little scope to respond to any gaps or problems in terms of terms of reference, evaluation design (methodology), data collection or analysis’.

  Though substituting in for in terms of would make both these sentences clearer, perhaps more would be gained than lost by rewriting them as follows: ‘This review of the general principles on which the reports were based comes too late for there to be much chance of improving the reports themselves’.

  The phrase in terms of is sometimes rightly used to make plain that a subject is being matched to a restricted class of language. But slack use of the expression is so prevalent that if one person now says of another, ‘He abused me in terms of extreme violence’, it is no longer clear whether the victim has endured a shocking verbal assault, or has suffered (say) being hit over the head with a bottle. Though in terms of has helped itself to the meanings of numerous other single words, its three-word form is not enough for some, who prefer the inflated version in terms of issues to do with. In the sentence, ‘How highly should issues about access to treatment rank in terms of issues to do with resource allocation …’, a mere in would suffice; and the authors of the sentence that starts, ‘In terms of issues to do with cosmopolitanism, we will show that …’, could have contented themselves with a simple on. ~

  As to deserves special mention because it leads writers astray in other ways besides making them forget the right preposition. It may tempt them into a more elaborate circumlocution:

  The operation is a severe one as to the after effects. (The after effects of the operation are severe.)

  It is no concern of the Ministry as to the source of the information. (The source of the information is no concern of the Ministry.)

  As to serves a useful purpose at the beginning of a sentence by way of introducing a fresh subject: ‘As to your liability for previous years, I will go into this’. But it also has a way of intruding itself where it is not wanted, especially before such words as whether, who, what, how. All the following examples are better without as to:

  Doubt has been expressed as to whether these rewards are sufficient.

  I have just received an enquiry as to whether you have applied for a supplement to your pension.

  I am to ask for some explanation as to why so small a sum was realised on sale.

  I will look into the question as to whether you are liable.

  Note. Gowers himself uses the form the question whether elsewhere in this book (e.g. ‘We can now turn to the question whether some general advice can be given to fortify the writer against infection’). There may be readers who find themselves wanting to amend this to ‘the question of whether’; but omitting of, though unusual these days, is not wrong, and has the merit of brevity. ~

  VERBOSITY IN ADVERBIAL AND OTHER PHRASES

  Certain words beget verbosity. Among them are case and instance. The sins of case are well known. It has been said that there is perhaps no single word so freely resorted to as a trouble-saver and consequently responsible for so much flabby writing. Here are some examples to show how what might be a simple and straightforward statement becomes enmeshed in the coils of phrases formed with case:

  The cost of maintenance of the building would be higher than was the case with a building of traditional construction. (Than that of a building of traditional construction.)

  That country is not now so short of sterling as was formerly the case. (As it used to be.)

  Since the officiating president in the case of each major institute takes up his office on widely differing dates. (Since the officiating presidents of the major institutes take …)

  The National Coal Board is an unwieldy organisation, in many cases quite out of touch with the coalfields.

  It is not easy to guess the meaning of this last example.

  This trick of using case is even worse when the reader might be misled, though only momentarily, i
nto thinking that a material case was meant:

  Cases have thus arisen in which goods have been exported without the knowledge of this commission.

  Water for domestic use is carried by hand in many cases from road standpipes.

  There are, of course, many legitimate uses of the word, and writers should not be frightened away from it altogether. To borrow from Fowler, there are, for instance:

  A case of measles.

  You have no case.

  In case of need, or fire, or other emergency.*

  A bad case of burglary or other crime.

  A law case of any sort.

  Circumstances alter cases.

  But do not say ‘It is not the case that I wrote that letter’, when you mean ‘It is not true that I wrote that letter’, or merely ‘I did not write that letter’.

  Instance beguiles writers much as case does into roundabout ways of saying simple things:

  In the majority of instances the houses are three-bedroom. (Most of the houses are three-bedroom.)

  Most of the factories are modern, but in a few instances the plant is obsolete. (In a few of them.)

  In the first instance can generally be replaced by first.

  Another such word is concerned in the phrase so far (or as far) as … is concerned. A correspondent has written asking me to

  scarify the phrase ‘so far as … is concerned’, e.g. ‘the war is over so far as Germany is concerned’, an actual instance; or ‘so far as he was concerned interest in the game was over’. After long and vigilant watch I have still to find a case in which a single preposition would not be clearer as well as shorter.

  It is perhaps putting the case too high to say that so far (or as far) as … is concerned could always be replaced by a single preposition. I do not think that the phrase can be dispensed with by those who wish to emphasise that they have blinkers on, and are concerned only with one aspect of a question. ‘So far as I am concerned you may go home’ implies that someone else has a say too. Or again: