Writing, Clear and Simple

Last night, I was chatting with my friends Kip and Bob, and the topic veered to the weather. Specifically, to the temperature.

We’re in the middle of a “wind chill warning” (that’s what the National Weather Service calls it) because of sub-zero temperatures coupled with high winds. 

I mentioned that I thought the sub-zero conditions wouldn’t actually be all that bad if it weren’t for the wind. “One year, when I was in college, my brother and I went to Colorado during Christmas break” I said. “We ended up staying at a place high in the Rockies, at almost, but not quite, Pike’s Peak altitude. And it was cold—well below zero a lot of the time, but it wasn’t windy, and the air was dry. You obviously didn’t want to just stand around outside, but it wasn’t all that bad when we were outside.”

Kip (who happens to be the meteorologist for one of the local television stations) agreed, and said “Yeah, one time I was ice fishing on Lake of the Woods, and it got down to -30 during the night.” (He was staying in an ice house, in case you’re wondering.)

“My pickup wouldn’t start in the morning, because it was just too darn cold, but there wasn’t any wind. It was dead still. So there I was, trying to fix my pickup, not wearing a coat, but just an insulated flannel shirt, and it didn’t feel all that bad.”

Bob then chimed in with his story. “The coldest I have ever been in my life was when I was in Washington, D.C. in December. It wasn’t that cold, but it rained every day, and the cold just cuts to the bone when you’re damp.”

Nobody talked about the physics of what happens when you combine cold with wind, or with humidity. We didn’t need to. We told our stories, and we understood each other. (Yeah, I’m using a story about some guys telling stories to illustrate the utility and power of stories. A meta-story, if you will.)

Notice that these stories weren’t deep, dramatic, or drawn out. A story doesn’t need to be a big thing, scripted by a Pulitzer Prize winner.

We use stories all the time in our conversations with each other. Why not add them to your writing?  

Eggcorns are peculiar linguistic beasties: they happen when someone writes a phrase but mistakenly substitutes one of the words with another. The word eggcorn itself comes from an instance in which someone referred to acorns as egg corns. In a way, this substitution—although wrong—still makes sense: acorns are egg-shaped, and they’re seeds, like corn.

Anyway, here’s a double dose of eggcorns that I recently discovered in our local newspaper.

From an article about how sled dog racers dress to stay warm:

“Mushers, handlers and spectators didn’t seem phased Friday by being out in the cold all day at the Third Crossing Sled Dog Rendevous.”

Actually, I think the mushers, handlers, and spectators didn’t seem fazed by being out in the cold all day. Faze means “to disrupt the composure of; disconcert.” Phase, as a verb, means “to plan or carry out systematically by phases,” or “to set or regulate so as to be synchronized.” However, according to The Eggcorn Database (yes, someone keeps track of these things), this misuse of phase is quite common.

The second one is from an article describing the confirmation hearings for Ed Schafer, who’s been selected by President Bush as the new Secretary of Agriculture:

“Shafer towed the administration line, agreeing with the administration…”

As soon as I read that, I asked myself “I wonder where he towed it to? ” Toe the line is a figure of speech derived from the image of a group of people lined up with their toes touching a line on the ground (at the start of a race, or in military formation, for example). Again, replacing toe with tow has become quite common, and it may soon be an accepted form.

Despite the widespread use of phase for faze and tow the line instead of toe the line, I ask you all to do me a favor and toe the line by using the correct forms of these idioms.

If you are involved in publishing something that includes text in more than one language, be sure to have people who are native speakers of those languages double-check the text. Otherwise, you may end up with something like this:

(Click to view full size image) This is a page in a quilting book that I found in a area fabric store; I took the photo with my cell phone. (My wife was looking for something to make some valances, and I was along to offer opinions.) I believe the book was published in Japan; most of the text didn’t use the Latin alphabet. I’m pretty sure that the authors of the text meant to call the designs on these pages “Stained Glass,” and not “Stained Grass,” because they were reminiscent of the decorative stained glass windows one finds in Victorian-era houses. I have no idea if there’s any such thing as “stained grass.” I can’t recall hearing or reading the phrase before, much less in the context of quilt designs.

I’m not really sure, though. Maybe “stained grass” is a phrase that’s meaningful in Japan. However, it doesn’t mean much to me. If that’s what they really meant, then maybe it should have been translated into something more culturally relevant in English-speaking countries.

In either case, if a native English speaker had proofread this text before the book was published, he or she could have raised the issue and gotten things clarified.  As it is, well, I got a good chuckle from it.

(It reminds me of some of the scenes in the movie Lost in Translation, with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. Murray’s character, Bob Harris, continually has trouble understanding what people are saying to him because they keep getting the L and R sounds mixed up.)

Related: “Don’t get lost in translation.” 

Every month, internet users send 30 million e-mail messages. Approximately three of them are effective.

OK, maybe I overestimate the number of poorly written e-mails, but not by much. What can we do about it?

Last summer, I posted my downloadable article, “10 Tips for Effective E-mail.” Now, Matthew Stibbe gives us “Ten laws for better email*.”

Yes, some of Stibbe’s ideas overlap mine, but it’s a fresh take on an evergreen topic. I really like his number 1 law:

Email is about the reader, not the writer. Don’t think about what you have to say. Think about what the reader needs to hear. There’s nothing more tedious than an email that starts out with 200 words of self-justification when all it needs is a single sentence containing a question.

 Check both articles out, and put the advice to use TODAY!

*You say email, and I say e-mail. Some people hyphenate it (but I think more people are starting to use the un-hyphenated form) and some don’t. I don’t much care whether you put in the hyphen or not, just be consistent.

Scott Berkun usually blogs and writes books about project management and innovation (and he does it well, too). But he’s also passionate about good communication, and apparently about Zen.

George Orwell wrote about what happens when we misuse words. A core theme in the novel 1984 is how abuse of language enables other evils. Well the time has come: I’m stepping up to defend the word Zen.

Zen is in a sorry state of abuse in 2008. Much like innovation, the word Zen is now a placeholder for thought, used for its connotation of something positive rather than any specific meaning. People often use the word in complete ignorance. Here’s what the word means:

To practice Zen is to use meditation and other techniques to develop an understanding of oneself, and seek spiritual enlightenment

He goes on to list some things—blogs, websites, MP3 players—that use Zen in their names, but really don’t have anything to do with the philosophy and spiritual practice of Zen itself.

Words like Zen, correctly understood and properly used, are powerful things. But if we misuse them, misapply them, we sap them of their power.

Fascist and fascism are great examples of what happens to words when they are misapplied. Fascist has become an all-purpose epithet among certain groups, applied to anyone they don’t like. The substance of the views held by the person being attacked are irrelevant; I’ve seen instances of limited-government, free-market advocates being tarred by their opponents as fascists, indicating that the attackers either don’t know what the word really means, or they don’t care, and they’re engaging in ad-hominem attacks.

Words—like Zen, fascist, and my recent hobby-horse, crisis—mean things. Be sure you understand their meanings before you toss them around like candy from a homecoming parade float.