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Buzz off

August 26th 2011 22:34

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out, said George Orwell in his rules of good writing. Had he been clairvoyant, he might have been referring to the following sentence.

"For 35 years, Canadian Living has been developing creative meal solutions for Canadian families."

Good on them. If only they would stick to recipes, within which the scope for mangling language is limited.

Of course, this atrocity has most likely been committed by someone outside the Canadian Living organisation. It has almost certainly been committed by someone from the International War on Language Alliance, also known as marketing.

Some people should never be allowed near a keyboard.

For anyone in marketing unsure why I have steam pouring from my ears, I appeal to any atom or two of interest in the integrity of language which remains within your buzz word-addled brain.

I do so by asking what is wrong with the following:

"For 35 years, Canadian Living has been developing creative meals for Canadian families."

Buzz words are instant clichés. They are communication tools for the lazy and the unimaginative. Tell that to your marketing lecturer.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Clichés, Language, Redundancies, Writing

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A good word about Marina Diamandis

November 10th 2010 03:22

George Orwell’s Third Rule for Effective Writing:

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

In an interview published in Australia’s mX newspaper today, British singer and song-writer Marina Diamandis talks about her passion for words.

Those who compose the words to songs work under the same constraints as writers of poetry. This is language at its most spare, and superfluous words – imposters inserted, perhaps, purely to help with metre or rhyme – stand out like a pimple on a nose.

“When I'm writing lyrics,” says the 25-year-old Diamandis, “I don't use any surplus words. I want every single word, if possible, to be great, even if that sounds a bit weird.”

If Diamandis understands Orwell’s Third Rule, she understands that there is nothing weird about it. What’s usually weird is language written or spoken without regard to the rule.

Of course, Diamandis does understand – you don’t have a hit debut album, as she did, if your songs are sloppy with unwanted words. Perhaps, in the generosity of youth, Diamandis is empathising with those who don’t understand the need to get rid of unnecessary words. We can’t all be writers and poets.

“A three-minute song should be like a huge idea filtered down into a very consumable story,'' Marina Diamandis continued. Bravo.

Orwell would approve, as would a fellow-poet, Ezra Pound. He once put it this way: “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.”

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Language, Poetry, Redundancies, Writing

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The power of language

September 1st 2010 03:54

Words, like numbers, can be twisted to suit the aims of the user.

There was an interesting news item today about a British doctor who has developed an iPhone application which can act as a stethoscope. Dr Peter Bentley’s idea was meant to be a toy, but the app works so well that it has been downloaded by more than three million doctors and is starting to appear in hospitals in place of traditional stethoscopes.

It’s free, about 500 new users a day are downloading it and experts claim it has already saved lives.

``Smartphones are incredibly powerful devices packed full of sensors, cameras, high-quality microphones with amazing displays,'' Dr Bentley said. ``They are capable of saving lives, saving money and improving healthcare in a dramatic fashion, and we carry these massively powerful computers in our pockets.''

This sounds like an all-round success story, and would be if it stopped there. But Dr Bentley has a problem. He claims he could produce more apps, including a mobile ultrasound scanner or an app to measure oxygen levels in the blood, but is being blocked by “out-of-date” industry regulations.

It is easy to see this as a call to review the rules which govern such things. However, the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the body in charge of new technology regulation, chose to see it as a challenge.

“This is such a complex area that we are currently looking at every application on a case-by-case basis,” an agency spokesman said. “'We want to ensure that these new technologies are effectively regulated, thereby protecting health and avoiding unnecessary deterrents, while at the same time removing any unnecessary obstacles to manufacturers who wish to exploit new technologies for the benefit of patients.”

Huh? In the face of implied, or perceived, criticism, this is the obfuscation defence which has been perfected by politicians. It’s an unnecessary deterrent in its own right.

The Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency would help both developers and users of new technology a great deal better if it used simpler language to present a clearer message.

A little more care about language could have produced something like: “The agency’s job is to find a balance between fostering the development of technology and ensuring the public is protected from unscrupulous or incompetent efforts. Regulations, like technology itself, are always developing, and breakthroughs like that of Dr Bentley are the guides we, as regulators, use to keep being effective. We congratulate Dr Bentley on the stethoscope app, and will contact him immediately to discuss the obstacles he sees to further smart phone applications.”

Clear, simple and positive, and much more likely to lead to productive dialogue than the pretentious jargon above.

At any level of communication, language can be used to build obstacles or clear the way for progress.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Language, Writing

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Basic rules for writing a novel: 1

April 11th 2010 00:36

Anyone can write a novel, and many dream of doing so for reasons other than profit and critical acclaim. For many it is like running a marathon — something to be done for the satisfaction; because it is there.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Consistency of style, Language, Writing

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Dark corners of the language: clichés

February 1st 2010 05:17

We have in the past advised novice writers against using clichés. There no known excuse to use a cliché, we said. There is no imaginable circumstance in the occupied universe, we advised, that can justify using a cliché.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Clichés, Language, Writing

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English. RIP

March 20th 2009 17:31

Vincent van Gogh, Sorrow (1882)

The language as we know it is doomed. The pressures of change have grown until they are irresistible. Twitter may be the straw which breaks the back of English. Perhaps it is it too late. Language as we knew it

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging, Language, Writing

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