Thirty-seven residents have offered gardens.
Here is an extract which combines several examples in one paragraph.
Because of severe drought conditions, the Dansville water supply has reached a critical state. Rolland Link, superintendent of the water department, urged residents in a statement yesterday to conserve water. This could make the difference, he said, as to whether the supply remains adequate enough to serve the people of the community without allocating specific quantities at certain times of the day.
Dansville, hit by drought, is so short of water that it may be cut off for times during the day unless everybody saves more, said Rolland Link, superintendent of the water department yesterday.
You may have noticed several common sources of wordiness. An abstract noun is used with an adjective when a simple adjective will do (of a far-reaching character); and an abstract noun is added to a concrete noun (slum conditions). Another source of wordiness is the change of a live verb into an abstract noun which then requires help from an adjective and a tame verb. Take the live-verb form:
He bowled badly.
That is a sentence with (pronoun) subject, verb and adverb. The adverb ‘badly’ is pale but it suffices. Compare the construction when the verb ‘bowled’ is made into the abstract noun ‘bowling’. To say the same thing we then need a subject, noun, verb and adjective – and for some reason it is usually a woollier one.
His bowling was poor.
That is weaker – and longer. The text editor should restore purity to such sentences. Verb–adverb combinations are stronger and shorter than noun–verb–adjective combinations. Two verbs are better than verb plus abstract noun.
Here are some examples. Note that when a verb is rendered into a noun a group of abstract indirect words fastens on the corpse:
They will conduct a survey of an oasis.
They will survey an oasis.
They voted for the expulsion of…
They voted to expel …
A parade will be held for the decoration of the six men.
The six men will be decorated at a parade.
He favoured the reorganisation of…
He favoured reorganising…
Police paid a visit to the scene of the crime
Police visited the scene of the crime.
Italy has expressed a favourable attitude toward participating in studies on the possible development of a Nato multilateral nuclear force, said a communiqué today. The United States has advocated the creation of such a force.
Italy favours … taking part/joining
The United States has advocated this, or … advocated creating …
Objections have been raised by Macon County teachers.
Macon County teachers have objected.
He will be responsible for the marshalling of troops.
He will marshal troops.
They made an estimation of the value.
They estimated the value.
In the following example the text editor’s antennae should have tingled at the approach of that abstract noun ‘creation’. The original sentence is 44 words; the version on the right is only 26words. Coast rescue is made the subject of the sentence because it identifies the topic at once in amore interesting way than beginning with an administrative body, the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention.
The creation of a national organisation to assist local authorities and voluntary societies and to bring a sense of urgency to the problem of rescue work around the coast of Britain is urged in the first report of the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention.
Coast rescue work urgently needs a national body to help voluntary societies and local authorities, says the first report of the Medical Commissionon Accident Prevention.
Write with Nouns and Verbs
Some writers think that style means spraying adjectives and adverbs on sentences. These may give a superficial glitter. They often conceal rusty bodywork. Adjectives and adverbs should not be afterthoughts. They should be permitted only when they add precision and economy to a sentence. Every adjective should be examined to see: is it needed to define the subject or is it there for emphasis?
If something is amusing or sensational there is no need to tell the readers. The facts that amused or shocked should be described and they can apply their own adjectives. After all, as a newspaper style book years ago said, Genesis does not begin ‘The amazingly dramatic story of how God made the world in the remarkably short time of six days …’ Yet the worst kind of newspaper writing – said to be colourful – still cannot bear to let through the naked noun.
In this sunbaked land lying between strife-torn Nigeria and unsettled Sudan, dissident Arab tribesmen of the 3,000-strong CLF are badly rattling the French-backed 6,000-strong French Army.
President Pompidou, who inherited the thorny problem of Chad from de Gaulle therefore faces an acute dilemma. France’s prestige may suffer a damaging blow if the rebels win a complete victory …
It is extraordinary how much of this kind of writing is improved simply by striking out the decoration, where the adjective is not defining but merely adorning – sunbaked, strife-torn, unsettled, dissident, thorny, acute, damaging, complete. The other phrases – 3,000-strong, French-backed, and 6,000-strong – are economical ways of defining the noun, but in this sentence they merely add to the monotony of the style. It would be better to say ‘… the 3,000-strong CLF are badly rattling the French-backed army of 6,000.’
Sports writers are still the gaudiest. ‘This was the Portugal who crushed Brazil mercilessly from the World Cup, not the Portugal who so gracefully lost to England’.
That sentence is weakened, not strengthened, by the unnecessary mercilessly. And again: ‘After a split second of eerie silence, the thunderous roars told him the wonderful news’. These adjectives do not define the nouns. They are there for effect. When there is a great deal of this the result is emasculating.
These are the sequins from one report. It was an exciting match when you could see it for the adjectives:
Magnificent; out of this world; their glowing skills and unflinching bravery; this man of magic; the thunder of exultant, rejoicing thousands; raked relentlessly through a shattered defence; an athletic immortal in his own golden age flicked in a shot that was a gem, a jewel of gold – no, a Crown Jewel; the golden dream; subdued and well-thrashed; so gallant and knightly; a disgrace to a noble competition; the red-and-white cauldron of Wembley bubbled joyously; the honest joy gleaming; faltered nervously; 53 tension-haunted minutes; typically outrageous; magnificently, gloriously, wonderfully, riotously.
It recalls Quiller-Couch’s advice: ‘Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out’.
It is not simply that some of the noun–adjective combinations here are cliché. The tedium of the automatic adjectives is too irritating; overemphasis destroys credibility. Text editors should go to bed at night with Strunk’s thought that the adjective has not been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place. Superlatives should be put through a second sieve for accuracy. The biggest, tallest, fastest, richest so often turns out to be the second biggest, second tallest, second fastest and second richest.
These are some adjectives which are absolute, and modifications should be challenged:
absolute, certain, complete, devoid, empty, entire, essential, external, everlasting, excellent, fatal, final, full, fundamental, harmless, ideal, immaculate, immortal, impossible, incessant, indestructible, infinite, invaluable, invulnerable, main, omnipotent, perfect, principal, pure, simultaneous, ultimate, unanimous, unendurable, unique, unspeakable, untouchable, whole, worthless.
Strike out Meaningless Modifiers
No word should be encumbered with a parasite, consuming space and debasing the language. It is absurd when the word is an absolute. An incident is either unique or it is not. It cannot be ‘rather’ unique. It is like being ‘rather pregnant’
. Sellers monopolise a market or they do not. It is meaningless to report them as having ‘absolutely’ (or partly) monopolised the market. If the copy says the pitch had reached ‘a high degree of perfection’, the text editor should pass only the fact that the pitch is near-perfect (as in truth it probably isn’t perfect). If something is inevitable, it cannot be more or most inevitable. It cannot be nearly inevitable.
The ‘lonely hermit’ could have been nothing else. To report ‘the final outcome’ suggests, ridiculously, that there could have been a half-way outcome. It is no satisfaction to those turned away to read that the theatre was ‘completely’ full.
Many non-absolutes are weakened by qualifiers. Danger is danger, and a good strong word, but often in newspapers you see reports of ‘serious’ and ‘real’ danger. Real may be justified if an imaginary danger is contrasted; but whoever heard of an unserious danger? Sir Ernest Gowers, in his admirable book for civil servants,10 nailed another abuse in the qualifications ‘due’ and ‘undue’. ‘The tenants were asked not to be unduly alarmed’. As Gowers says, it differs little from ‘there is no cause for alarm for which there is no cause’ and that hardly seems worth saying.
Here are some newspaper examples (my italics); comments or rewrites are on the right. Later on in this chapter there is a longer list of redundancies.
At an annual value of £1 million a year.
Either ‘a year’ or ‘annual’ is superfluous.
Some of the remarks made included…
The remarks included …
He agreed to augment the existing watchman force from five to seven men.
The watchmen must already exist, or they could not be augmented.
Michael Salter, aged 4, was scalded on both legs by hot water in his home today.
Hardly with cold.
Johnson discarded two other possible alternatives as being impracticable.
If they weren’t possible, they would not be alternatives.
He said a driving test was an essential condition.
If it’s a condition it must be essential: He said a driving test was essential.
A growing gulf seems to be developing.
A gulf seems to be developing.
A further source of wordiness is in descriptions of quantities or measure. Simplicity and directness call for many, some, few, most, heavy, light, short, long. What text editors often see on copy is in the majority of instances, in a number of cases, a large proportion of. They should never hesitate to change these prolix forms. ‘A large percentage of failures’ should be changed to ‘many failures’. They should also always be ready to question modifying and deprecating phrases. Sir Ernest Gowers detected that writers feel there is something indecent about the unadorned adjectives ‘few’, ‘short’, and so on. Adverbial dressing gowns are thrown around these naked adjectives –unduly, relatively, comparatively. Yet often there is nothing to compare, and the qualification is meaningless as well as space-consuming. Check: is there a real comparison in the story? If there is not, off with the dressing gown!
Text editors should also suspect in more or less degree, somewhat, to a certain extent, to a degree, small in size, quite, and that news accretion mark: ‘The death roll has topped the 300 mark’. Why ‘mark’? It should be reported: ‘More than 300 have died’.
Avoid Needless Repetition
The most noticeable needless repetition is repetition of source. Once the report has identified the source of the information there is no need to keep parading it. This is an ailment in American newspapers; it is an epidemic. Only if identity is in doubt need it be repeated.
The United States is ready to sell the Soviet Union 200 bushels of wheat for $380 million in cash, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Orville Freeman, indicated yesterday. Freeman cautioned that no decision had been made. The agriculture secretary came to Harrisburg following a meeting with the President on the wheat sale question. Though Freeman said no deal had been closed …
The constant drip of the source is like Chinese water torture. Nowhere does it seem to have occurred to the text editor that there is such a thing as a pronoun. And again:
Fire early today wrecked the marina in Brooman, causing an estimated £10,000 of damage, police said. The fire destroyed the main building and an undetermined number of boats, said police.
‘Police said’. Do we doubt them?
It destroyed the main building and some boats.
Some text editors and reporters exhibit in their copy the kind of phobia that makes us go downstairs ten times to check that the light is off. They have a nagging doubt that the reader has not quite got the point – so they keep going on about it. Once is enough for most pieces of information. When the information is merely incidental its repetition is doubly irritating. Here’s an example from the New York Times:
A disappointment among the data is that while infant mortality has continued to decline, and is almost at the goal, there remains a great disparity between the rate for whites and for blacks. The death rate among black infants is about twice that for whites, Dr. Richmond said, and it has been getting that way for decades.
The italicised words in the original story tell us nothing. So it boils down to:
A disappointment is that while infant mortality has continued to decline, almost to the goal, the death rate among black infants is about twice that for whites …
Here is a report, from an English provincial daily, of a speech at a factory opening:
A Government grant to promote publicity for the North-East will be announced in Parliament today.
This was revealed by Mr George Chetwynd, Director of the North-East Development Council, after he had opened a new 300,000 particle board plant at the Willington Quay factory of the Tyne Board Company Limited yesterday.
‘I cannot disclose the amount of the grant until it has been presented to Parliament’, said Mr Chetwynd. ‘But it will be a highly satisfactory figure. It will enable us to do a much bigger and better job in the area than we have been able so far.’
The factory which Mr Chetwynd was opening …
While Mr Chetwynd declared the plant open in the presence of …
Mr Chetwynd, before pushing the button to start the new plant, said he believed this would be a turning point in the future of Tyneside …
The new plant opened by Mr Chetwynd will produce …
Does anybody want to argue about whether Mr Chetwynd opened that plant?
Why, in the next story, do we have the repetition of ‘people’? If it were a story about asthma striking elephants and people, it would be worth making the point. Otherwise it can be left understood after the first reference that the report is about people. Better still, the noun ‘people’ should be translated into individuals – elderly men, or young children, or women and children. The meaning of the version on the right is clear and it saves 17 words.
The Cuban radio reported today that three more people have died from a peculiar type of asthma attack that struck down more than 200 people in Havana. Five people died of asthma on Wednesday because of a freak atmospheric condition, according to the radio which was monitored in Miami.
Three more people died from a peculiar asthma that has struck down more than 200 in Havana, says Cuban Radio. Five died of asthma on Wednesday night because of freak atmospheric conditions.
Avoid Monologophobia
The world is indebted to Theodore Bernstein of the New York Times for this term which has the virtue that it is ugly enough to spring out of the page and hit you. A monologophobe, says Mr Bernstein,11 is a guy who would rather walk naked in front of Saks Fifth Avenue than be caught using the same word more than once in three lines of type. Some of the writers stricken with monologophobia are the ones who had an aversion (in the preceding section) to the humble pronoun; their remedy is to invent another noun. Here are two examples:
Palestine’s Arabs swore before the United Nations special Palestine committee today to drench the soil of that tiny country ‘with t
he last drop of our blood’ in opposing any big power scheme to partition the Holy Land.
The Minister of Transport, Mrs Barbara Castle, today opened a new motorway extension to Preston. The red-headed non-driver said two more extensions were planned and by 1970 it would be possible to drive the 150 miles without entering a single town. The Minister, who sits for Blackburn, travelled …
One country is given three different names: Palestine, that tiny country, and the Holy Land. The insertion of the synonym ‘red-headed non-driver’ for Mrs Castle leaves readers wondering if they are still reading about the same person. Fowler, who called this ‘elegant variation’, thought minor novelists and reporters were the real victims ‘first terrorised by a misunderstood taboo, next fascinated by a newly discovered ingenuity, and finally addicted to an incurable vice’.12 The fatal influence is certainly the advice given to young writers never to use the same word twice in a sentence. A monologophobe would edit the Bible so that you would read, ‘Let there be light and there was solar illumination’.
The leather sphere seems to have disappeared from the sports pages, but monologophobia strikes in many places. In court reports there is a bewildering alternation of the names of people with their status as ‘defendant’ or ‘plaintiff’. It is better to stick to names throughout:
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