Writing English (as opposed to something like Lojban) is always a compromise between using every possible word and construct to get your point across, and using the simplest language you can risking the loss of important shades of meaning.
I know that the English I write can be a bit complicated and hard to read, especially for non-native speakers. I use two words that mean the same thing rather than one, I jam sentences together in odd ways, I use lots of slang and idiom, and I sometimes abuse the rules of grammar. I am also too wordy 
That said, after reading this amazing sentence in [_The World We're In_](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316858714/026-0819439-9759659), I have vowed to always use the simplest language I can:
> So it is that the [syllogism](http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:syllogism) that the rights of the propertied
> and the freedom of business come before any assertion of the public interest or social concerns has become the
> consensus orthodoxy.
It took me at least 30 seconds to figure that out the first time I saw it, and I had to look up what “syllogism” meant. I think that this sentence actually mis-uses the word “syllogism” …. as far as I can tell this isn’t really an argument by implication and the word “idea” would have been better.
The sentence could probably be rewritten like this:
> The idea that property rights and business freedom come before social concerns and the public interest
> has become widely accepted
… and would be significantly easier to read and less confusing for non-native or less “intellectual” speakers. I think the author uses this style of writing to make himself seem more intelligent – the way things are phrased and the language used is associated with intellectual/academic debate. Some of the [best politics books I ever read](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565849086/103-9635376-4733454?v=glance&n=283155) also used some of the simplest and clearest English to get their points across. Guess which one is more fun to read?
February 10, 2006 at 1:55 pm |
Mike, I think you would like the writings of Richard Mitchel the Underground Grammarian on this subject. I would start with the e-book link to “Less Than Words Can Say” in the upper left corner of the site. The problem is not just a matter of vocabulary and structure, but taking a stand in our writing and making verifiable assertions.
February 10, 2006 at 5:46 pm |
Most of the managers where I work talk like that, mainly because they don’t know what they’re talking about half the time.
April 17, 2007 at 5:14 pm |
> I know that the English I write can be a bit complicated and hard to read, especially for non-native speakers.
Well, I’m a non-native-speaker (German is my mother language), and I find your Blog generally quite easy to read and understand (at least on a natural-language-level, not necessarily on a semantic level …)
But the quote from “The World We’re In” really is over the top, it took me three times reading the whole sentence and some seconds of thinking before I had at least a rough understanding of it.
I think that people that intentionally write that way don’t WANT to be understood, they just want to show off their language skills, which may be sophisticated, but why should the reader care? If the message, the payload, is important, it’s much more mature to just write simple plain English (or German, or whatever) … what you seem to do mostly the whole time.
April 18, 2007 at 5:58 am |
Thanks. Which parts are semantically unclear?