Communication 273
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Memo to the class:
Still not convinced? Here's the "New York Times Manual of Style and Usage": "The best style relies on the reporters' ears and eyesight and on simplicity . . ." And, of course, the Ten Commandments for many writers, "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White: "The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity." Years after Ernest Hemingway left the Kansas City Star, he could still quote from the paper's old stylebook. "Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing," he said. "No man with any talent, who feels and writes truly about the thing he is trying to say, can fail to write well if he abides with them." When you worked there, they made you memorize it: "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English, not forgetting to strive for smoothness. Be positive, not negative." In the early morning hours outside Randal Kelley's saloon, I once set those words to a Handelian oratorio. No, I won't sing it for you. Orwell said, if you want to write pretentiously, begin by eliminating active verbs. You've got the idea, right? Let's move on. In the past, students have complained that if they follow my requirement for simple writing, their stories will be dumbed down. They are certain of it, and you may think the same thing. The key point for us is to not to confuse the power of simple words with the deadening effect of second-rate ideas. Think of something George Bernard Shaw wrote in his days as a journalist. Shaw was a music critic before he wrote plays, and his reviews appeared under the byline of Corno di Bassetto. That's Italian for basset horn, a kind of clarinet. Shaw loved Mozart, and he had only scorn for people who considered Mozart's music nothing but trifles fit only for listeners of the simplest tastes. He was contemptuous, you might say, of those who thought Mozart's compositions were music dumbed down. Quite the opposite is true of Mozart, as Shaw well knew. This is what he wrote: "Nothing but the finest execution -- beautiful, expressive, and intelligent -- will serve; and the worst of it is, that the phrases are so perfectly clear and straightforward, that you are found out the moment you swerve by a hair's breadth from perfection, whilst, at the same time, your work is so obvious, that everyone thinks it must be easy, and puts you down remorselessly as a duffer for botching it." What Shaw was praising about Mozart's music is what we should strive for in our writing: prose that is intelligent, expressive and pleasing, set down in phrases that are perfectly clear and straightforward. You will note that I have substituted pleasing for beautiful. Our aim is good journalism, Mozart's was art. If our first objective is to write with intelligence, we must do everything we can to avoid obscuring our ideas. Those ideas may be large or small, intricate or direct, profound or merely interesting. Whatever they are, we must remember that our prose is the vehicle by which those ideas are carried from our minds to those of our readers. The words we choose and the way we put them together determines whether the passage is smooth or full of bumps and potholes. The most memorable passages often contain the simplest language. The words in them are enormously strong, get underway quickly and can deliver the weightiest messages without loss of traction.
T.S. Eliot is regarded as one of 20th century's most difficult poets. Yet, at his best and most beautiful, Eliot forswears everything ornate and wraps his lovely images in the simplest of language. Here he is writing about finality:
Twenty-six words, 30 syllables. It's from "Little Gidding," the last of his "Four Quartets. PhD students write dissertations about it (but not in one-syllable words). On Tuesday, I talked about euphemisms, jargon, cliches -- the three "horsepersons," you might say, of the writer's apocalypse, Such constructions do more than degrade your writing. They can degrade you. There's a little book by Alain de Botton called "How Proust Can Change Your Life." (A student some years ago brought it to me after listening to my rant.) It contains a passage that goes to the heart of the matter: "The problem with cliches is not that they contain false ideas, but rather than they are superficial articulations of very good ones. The sun is often on fire at sunset and the moon discreet but if we keep saying this every time we encounter a sun or a moon, we will end up believing that this is the last rather than the first word to be said on the subject." What Alain de Botton is saying is that cliches are to be avoided not merely because they are superficial but because of their effect upon the writer. The resort to shopworn phrases dulls our minds. This is an important insight. For if we use cliches or jargon regularly, we are likely to start thinking in them. If we write in euphemisms, we may start thinking in euphemisms. You may find yourselves talking about the homeless community as if such a thing actually existed. There are many kinds of homeless people. Some women are homeless because they are afraid of being beaten up by the men in their lives Some people are homeless because they are alcoholics or drug addicts. Some homeless people have regular jobs and go to work every day. I've seen homeless moms at school meetings for parents. People can become homeless when the place they live burns down. People lose their homes because they can't the pay the rent or because they live so close to the margin that missing a couple days of work a day costs them their jobs. Some homeless people are mentally ill. This is a "community"? Once you have a thought and want to express it originally, turn first to words that have clear and sturdy meanings, that are not likely to be blown this way or that by the fashions of the day. Assemble these words into sentences in which exactly the right verb for your idea marches vigorously behind exactly the right noun. Of your adjectives and adverbs, to borrow once more from the Bible, let it truly be said that many are called but few are chosen. If you do these all these things, I will guarantee that your writing will not be dull. I will guarantee that your writing will be understood by strangers who never before gave a thought to the subject of your stories. They will remember what you wrote. Your ideas will have traveled, from your mind to theirs and those ideas will find a new life there. Still doubt that simple words in spare sentences can convey the deepest ideas with force and clarity? Imagine yourself in the grip of the strongest idea of your life. Imagine that you need to express it without a trace of ambiguity. Your message must be plain and compelling, and the integrity of your message must be unassailable. The words must be words that every person on earth understands. In fact, your life depends on it. Tough assignment? Not in the least, for the words come as naturally to you as breathing, and you say them without hesitation: I love you. (Followed in time for millions of people by an even shorter complete sentence: I do.) Regards, Bill Woo |