Quotation of the Day

Entries in Quotations (28)

Quiz: Who said it?

Here’s a quiz for you. Who said this?

So if you speak in a way no one can understand, what’s the point of opening your mouth?

Sounds like someone asking people to use plain language, doesn’t it?

Hint: This quotation was translated to English from another language.

Posted on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 03:40PM by Registered CommenterRoy Jacobsen in | Comments2 Comments

The writer's responsibility: Tell the truth

If you forget everything else you ever knew about writing, remember this:

By taking up the study of writing now, you are assuming consciously, probably for the first time in your lives, a responsibility for our language. What is that responsibility? I think it is to make words mean what they say. It is to keep our language capable of telling the truth. […]

The first obligation of a writer is to tell the truth—or to come as near to telling it as is humanly possible.

—Wendell Berry 

(With thanks to Alice Linsley.)

Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 03:24PM by Registered CommenterRoy Jacobsen in | CommentsPost a Comment

Why writing matters

“A good idea presented badly can look like no idea, or a bad idea. So you owe it to your ideas to present them well.”

—Patrick Winston

Posted on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 06:44AM by Registered CommenterRoy Jacobsen in | CommentsPost a Comment

Programming readers

“Language is software for the mind.” — David McNally

Last night, I had the privilege of hearing David McNally—speaker and author of the best-selling book Even Eagles Need a Push—speak about personal branding, and he made that comment to us. It wasn’t a major point of his talk; it was almost an aside, a little throw-away line to help clarify something else he was saying. But it really struck me.

Language is software for the mind.

Years ago, someone helped demystify computer software for me by saying that it is really nothing more than a set of instructions and data that the computer uses to achieve a desired end.

A few years later, I heard a speaker at a Society for Technical Communication conference say that, just like programmers write code for machines, technical writers write code for users. That is, writers who write user’s guides and online help systems provide the instructions and data that users need to achieve a desired goal.

That idea made perfect sense to me at the time, but I never consciously expanded it beyond the realm of technical writing. Not until last night.

Language is software for the mind.

The words you use, either written or spoken, can have powerful effects on your audience—if you use them carefully and skillfully. Whether your goal is to inform, to persuade, to call for action, or to entertain, your words and your stories can be powerful. They can be powerful, because language is software for the mind.

Learning how to write that software well is well worth the effort. 

Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 08:08AM by Registered CommenterRoy Jacobsen in , | Comments3 Comments

Hemingway on the writing process

“When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again.”

—Ernest Hemingway

 

(by way of Moleskinerie)
Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 at 07:11AM by Registered CommenterRoy Jacobsen in | CommentsPost a Comment
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