Plain Words Read online

  QUALIFICATION OF ABSOLUTES

  Certain adjectives and adverbs cannot be properly qualified by such words as more, less, very and rather, because they do not admit of degrees. Unique is the standard example. When we say a thing is ‘unique’ we mean that there is nothing else of its kind in existence: ‘rather unique’ is strictly meaningless. But we can of course say almost unique.

  It is easy to slip into pedantry here, and to condemn qualification of words that are perhaps absolutes but are no longer treated as being so—true, for instance, and empty and full. We ought not to be exercised by ‘very true’, or ‘the hall was even emptier today than yesterday’ or ‘this cupboard is fuller than that one’. But the following quotation goes too far:

  It may safely be said that the design of sanitary fittings has now reached a high degree of perfection.

  Nor does the comparative seem happily chosen in ‘more virgin’, which a correspondent tells me he has seen in an advertisement.*

  PADDING

  All forms of verbosity might be described as padding, and the topic overlaps others we shall come to in the chapters on choosing the familiar word and choosing the precise word. I use padding here as a label for the type of verbosity Sir Winston Churchill referred to in a memorandum entitled ‘Brevity’ that he issued as Prime Minister on the 9th August 1940. He wrote:

  Let us have an end of such phrases as these:

  ‘It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations …’ or ‘consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect …’ Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.

  ‘Padding’, in the sense in which Sir Winston used the word, consists of clumsy and obtrusive stitches on what ought to be a smooth fabric of consecutive thought. No doubt it comes partly from a feeling that wordiness is an ingredient of politeness, and that blunt statement is crude, even rude. There is an element of truth to this: an over-staccato style is as irritating as an over-sostenuto one. But it is a matter of degree, and official prose is of the sort that calls for plainness rather than elegance. Moreover the habit of ‘padding’ springs partly from less meritorious notions—that the dignity of an official’s calling demands a certain verbosity, and that naked truth is indecent and should be clothed in wrappings of woolly words.

  Sir Winston gave two common examples based on the word consideration. He might equally well have chosen phrases based on appreciate. ‘It is appreciated that’ (anticipating an objection that is to be met) and ‘it will be appreciated that’ (introducing a reason for a decision that is to be given) are very prevalent. They can almost always be omitted without harm to the sense.*

  I have already referred, in Chapter III, to one way in which padding shows itself in official letters. Each paragraph is thought to need introductory words—I am to add; I am further to observe; I am moreover to remark; Finally, I am to point out; and so forth. Here is the same phenomenon in a circular sending a form for a statistical return:

  (i) It should be noted that the particulars of expenditure … relate to gross costs.

  (ii) It is appreciated that owing to staffing difficulties Local Authorities may not find it possible on this occasion to complete tables …

  (iii) It will be noted that in Tables … the only overhead expenditure … which the authorities are asked to isolate is …

  (iv) Table 4 … is intended to provide a broad picture.

  The words italicised in the first three paragraphs are padding. They are no more needed there than in paragraph (iv), where the writer has wisely done without them, perhaps fearing to run out of stock.

  Other examples:

  I am prepared to accept the discharge of this account by payment in instalments, but it should be pointed out that no further service can be allowed until the account is again in credit.

  The opportunity is taken to mention that it is understood …

  I regret that the wrong form was forwarded. In the circumstances I am forwarding a superseding one.

  It should be noted that there is the possibility of a further sale.

  This form of padding deserves a special mention because the temptation affects officials more than most people, and because it is comparatively easy to resist: it shows itself more plainly than other more subtle temptations to pad. For the rest, padding can be defined as the use of words, phrases and even sentences that contribute nothing to the reader’s perception of the writer’s meaning. Some seem to be especially tempting to writers. I have mentioned consideration and appreciate; among other seductive phrases are in this connection and for your information. These have their proper uses, but are more often found as padding clichés. In none of the following examples do they serve any other purpose:

  I am directed to refer to the travelling and subsistence allowances applicable to your Department, and in this connexion I am to say …

  The Minister’s views in general in this connexion and the nature and scope of the information which he felt would assist him in this connexion was indicated at a meeting …

  For your information I should perhaps explain that there is still a shortage of materials.

  For your information I would inform you that it will be necessary for you to approach the local Agricultural Executive Committee.

  This last example, taken from a letter I received myself, shows up the futility of this curious cliché. It was not even true that I was being told this ‘for information’: ‘for action’ would have been more appropriate.

  Of course is another adverbial phrase that needs watching lest it should creep in as padding. In some contexts of course is used to impress readers by showing the writer’s familiarity with an out-of-the-way piece of information. But the official who overworks the phrase is more likely to do so from genuine humility, putting it in so as not to seem didactic: ‘Don’t think that I suppose you to be so stupid that you don’t already know or infer what I am telling you, but I think I ought to mention it’. Sometimes of course is wisely used for this purpose—if, for instance, the writer has good reason to say something so obvious that any touchy readers may feel that they are being treated like fools. It is much better in these circumstances to say ‘of course’ than its pompous variant ‘as you are doubtless aware’. Of course might with advantage have been used in:

  It may be stated with some confidence that though it is possible for a blister-gas bomb to fall in a crater previously made by an H.E. bomb, the probability of such an occurrence is small.

  In this example, ‘It may be stated with some confidence that’ is not only padding but also an absurdity. One might say with some confidence that this will not happen, or with complete confidence that it is improbable, but to feel only some confidence about its improbability is carrying intellectual timidity to almost imbecile lengths.

  The following extracts, taken from two documents issued by the same Ministry at about the same time, are instructive. The first is:

  I am to add that, doubtless, local authorities appreciate that it is a matter of prime importance that information about possible breaches of Defence Regulation … should reach the investigating officers of the Ministry … with the minimum of delay.

  The second is:

  After six years of war almost every building in this country needs work doing to it. The whole of the building labour force could be employed on nothing else but repairs and maintenance. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of families who urgently need homes of their own and will keep on suffering great hardship until houses can be provided for them.

  The first of these is bad. It is the sort of thing that those who say civil servants write badly point to in support of their case. The first eighteen of its thirty-eight words are padding, and the last five are a starchy paraphrase of ‘as soon as possible’. The second is excellent. It has no padding, and says what it has to say in brisk, b
usinesslike English. Why this difference of style in the same department? We can only guess, but I do not think the guess is difficult. The first was written for the guidance of local government officials only. It was a routine matter and no trouble was taken over it. Its language is the sort that local authorities expect and understand. But the second was intended to impress the public, and the writer was at pains to use language in a way that would be grasped at once and that would carry conviction. This, I have no doubt, is the explanation, but it is not sufficient. Whatever the purpose, the first is bad and the second is good.

  The following introductory sentence to a circular is, I think, wholly padding, but I cannot be sure, for I can find no meaning in it:

  The proposals made in response to this request show differences of approach to the problem which relate to the differing recommendations of the Committee’s Report, and include some modifications of those recommendations.

  But padding is too multifarious for analysis. It can only be illustrated, and the one rule for avoiding it is to be self-critical.

  Note. The style of some of Gowers’s bad examples above may now sound outmoded (‘I am to add that, doubtless, local authorities appreciate that it is a matter of prime importance that …’). But officials still resort to padding. A recent paper issued by the Ministry of Justice on ‘cost protection for litigants in environmental judicial review claims’ states ‘in respect of’ appeals that ‘It should be noted in this context that it will not necessarily be the claimant who has appealed …’. Here, ‘it should be noted in this context that’ is pure ‘wrapping of woolly words’.

  Sometimes the padding in a sentence appears to have arrived there through simple fear of a blank page. Certainly the advertising puff below, reproduced in numerous tableware catalogues, bespeaks torment on the part of a writer with not much to say. The puff attempts to champion Blue Denmark, an antique plate pattern by the Staffordshire potters, Johnson Brothers:

  Historically, blue and white ceramic design dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries—this is sufficient evidence itself to recognise the reason why Blue Denmark continues its long reign.

  To put ‘historically’ at the start here adds nothing. To say ‘18th and 19th’ is perverse. And to end on ‘continues its long reign’ is an overblown metaphorical flourish. But to take ‘this is why’ and pad it with the words ‘sufficient evidence itself to recognise the reason’ is almost surreally illiterate. Unscrambled, what this sentence has told us is the following: ‘China patterns in blue and white date from the eighteenth century. This explains why Blue Denmark remains popular’. It is no great surprise to find that neither of these statements is true. ~

  VII

  The Choice of Words (3)

  Choosing the familiar word

  Literary men, and the young still more than the old of this class, have commonly a good deal to rescind in their style in order to adapt it to business … The leading rule is to be content to be common-place,—a rule which might be observed with advantage in other writings, but is distinctively applicable to these.

  HENRY TAYLOR, The Statesman, 1836

  Boswell says of Johnson: ‘He seemed to take pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into it. Talking of the comedy of “The Rehearsal,” he said, “It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.” This was easy;—he therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more rounded sentence: “It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction” ’. The mind of another famous lover of the rotund phrase worked the opposite way: ‘ “Under the impression,” said Mr Micawber, “that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road,—in short,” said Mr Micawber, in another burst of confidence, “that you might lose yourself —” ’. Officials should not hesitate over which of these remarkable men to take as their model. They should cultivate Mr Micawber’s praiseworthy habit of instinctively translating the out-of-the-way into the everyday. Thus we might find that, even though the Board of Trade could still not resist announcing that certain surplus government factories are now ‘available for reallocation’, they would not leave it at that. ‘In short,’ they would add in a burst of confidence, ‘they are to be relet.’

  The present inclination of officials is in the opposite direction. They are Johnsonians rather than Micawberites,* and so handicap themselves in achieving what we have seen to be their primary object as writers: to affect the reader precisely as they wish. The simple reader is puzzled. The sophisticated one is annoyed. Here is pent-up annoyance blowing off a genial jet of steam in the leading columns of The Times:

  some foreign importations have shown a terrifying and uncontrollable vitality, so that the sins of their original sponsors are visited with dreadful rigour upon succeeding generations. The kindly nature-lover who first liberated a pair of grey squirrels has a great deal to answer for, including a large share of the salaries of numerous civil servants engaged on the task known to them, rather hopefully, as pest-elimination. In the etymological field a similar bad eminence is reserved in the minds of all right-thinking men, for the individual who first introduced into the English language the word ‘personnel’. It is possible, just possible, that a more degrading, a more ill-favoured synonym for two or more members of the human race has at one time or another been coined; but, if it has, it has never gained the ubiquitous and tyrannical currency of this alien collective.*

  It would be churlish to accuse an onslaught so disarming of not being quite fair. But may it not be argued that when we admitted women auxiliaries to our armed forces the expression ‘men and material’ became unsuitable; and that we found a gap in our vocabulary and sensibly filled it, as we have so often done before, by borrowing from the French? Still, it cannot be denied that this word, like so many other high-sounding words of vague import, has exercised an unfortunate fascination over the official mind. The mischief of words of this sort is that they become such favourites that they seduce their users from clarity of thought. They mesmerise them and numb their discrimination.

  The precept to choose the familiar word (which is probably also the short word) must of course be followed with discretion. Many wise figures throughout the centuries, from Aristotle to Sir Winston Churchill, have emphasised the importance of using short and simple words. But no one knew better than these two authorities that sacrifice either of precision or of dignity is too high a price to pay for the familiar word. If the choice is between two words that convey the writer’s meaning equally well, one short and familiar and the other long and unusual, of course the short and familiar should be preferred. But one that is long and unusual should not be rejected merely on that account if it is more apt in meaning. Sir Winston does not hesitate to choose the uncommon word if there is something to be gained by it. If we were to ask whether there was any difference in meaning between woolly and flocculent we should probably say no: one was commonplace and the other unusual, and that was all there was to it. But Sir Winston, in the first volume of his Second World War, uses flocculent instead of woolly to describe the mental processes of certain people, and so conveys to his readers just that extra ounce of contempt that we feel flocculent to contain (perhaps because the combination of f and l so often expresses an invertebrate state, as in flop, flap, flaccid, flimsy, flabby and filleted). Moreover there is an ugliness of shortness as well as an ugliness of length. On the same day in different daily papers I have seen the same official referred to as ‘Administrator of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation’, and as ‘Aid Boss’. Neither title is euphonious, but few would unhesitatingly prefer the short one.

  Still, there are no great signs at present of an urgent need to warn against the overuse of simple diction by officials. In official documents, lack of precision is much more likely to arise from the use of jargon and legal language, and from an addictio
n to showy words.

  JARGON AND LEGAL LANGUAGE

  The OED defines jargon as being a word ‘applied contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession’. When it is confined to that sense, it is a useful word. But it has been handled so promiscuously of recent years that the edge has been taken off it, and now, as has been well said, it signifies little more than any speech that people feel to be inferior to their own. In the original sense its growth of late has been alarming. Modern discoveries in the older sciences, and the need of the newer ones to explain their ideas, have led to an enormous increase in that part of our vocabulary that can be classed as jargon. No doubt this is to some extent inevitable. New concepts may demand new words. The discipline of psychology, for example, can at least plead that if a new word is necessary for what my most recent dictionary defines as ‘the sum total of the instinctive forces of an individual’, a less pretentious one could hardly have been found than id—and never can so much meaning have been packed into so small a space since the sentence, ‘Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians’, was compressed into the word Upharsin.* But I find it refreshing when the evolutionary biologist Dr Julian Huxley says:

  We need a term for the sum of these continuities through the whole of evolutionary time, and I prefer to take over a familiar word like progress instead of coining a special piece of esoteric jargon. (Evolution in Action, 1953)