Nick Lewis: The Blog

Not to go on a rant here, but lately I've become increasingly tired of the hiflautin language of my trade. Its a profession which is infested with poly-word-rendered[1] monstrosities of terminology: "content management system", "constituent relationship management system", "hierarchical taxonomy"... One sometimes gets the sense that such terminology wasn't chosen on the basis of being the most accurate way of describing the given object, but rather because it happened to be the most impressive sounding to the layman.

Stumbled across this cool word dependency tool that takes a word, and uses some algorithm to find closely related words. Guess what word returns highest for "industrial-strength".

Chapter 1 of a yet to be named guide on writing in the blogosphere.

In general, bloggers are terrible writers. They may spellcheck,proof-read, and provide sound, well-structured arguments. However, as any honest writing instructor knows, A+ papers are often excruciatingly dull. Yet, a paper that receives an F's can be so funny that the instructor can't help but but put it on the refrigerator of the faculty lounge. In the abstract sense, the F paper could be considered good writing in the blogosphere. Nevermind that the writer made a fool of themselves.

If one considers the number of 14 to 15 year old's with blogs, it becomes clear we are entering an era where there are going to be a few too many public writers. A few self-serving pundits have suggested that this will result in "setting the bar low", and that anyone with a blog can now smear good decent hardworking journalists, and be heard. However, I'd argue that "the bar" (to borrow their overused, prefabricated figure of speech) has been raised.

When millions of people are talking, the end effect is almost no one being heard. To state the obvious, you must make an effort to stand out.

Styles of Writing to Avoid

Below, I've excerpted passages from real blogs on a largely random basis. My intention is not to showcase the worst, but rather to provide everyday examples of writing that should be avoided.

Rule I: avoid conventional talking points, and political language

For a long time liberals refused to admit that there was a liberal bias in the mainstream media (i.e. CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News, etc, etc, etc). Now liberals like Walter Cronkite are grudgingly admitting that most reporters are in fact liberal but it really doesn’t matter because talk radio and Fox News are conservative so it all balances out (for my previous comments on liberal media bias see here)...

Without having read the author's "previous comments" on this subject, I can say with absolute certainty that he'll argue this: liberals are bad, the media is liberal, therefore the media is bad. Personally, I'm suprised the author had the balls to assume people were interested in his previous comments. His promiscious use of the word liberal makes his writing look like a satire.

Whenever one resorts to meaningless political words such as "fascist", "liberal", "neo-con","leftists", one runs the risk of no longer having to think about what they write. And in all cases, lack of thought makes your writing uninspiring, stale, and worst of all:common and predictable. I suspect a thoughtful Republican would have found his polemic just as dull as I found it stupid. I rarely write about politics these days because frankly, I have nothing thoughtful to say on the subject that hasn't already been said. (continued tomorrow)

by George Orwell

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

"The word intellectual strikes me as odd. Personally, I've never met any intellectuals. I've met people who write novels, others who treat the sick. People who work in economics and others who write electronic music. I've met people who teach, people who paint, and people of whom I have never really understood what they do... But intellectuals? Never.

On the otherhand, I've met a lot of people who talk about "the intellectual". And listening to them, I've got some idea of what such an animal could be. It's not difficult -- he's quite personified. He's guilty about pretty well everything: about speaking out and about keeping silent, about doing nothing and about getting involved in everything... In short, the intellectual is raw material for a verdict, a sentence, a condemnation, an exlusion...

I don't find that intellectuals talk too much, since for me they don't exist. But I do find that more and more is being said about intellectuals, and I don't find it very reassuring.

I have an unfortunate habit. When people speak about this or that, I try to imagine what the result would be if translated into reality. When they "criticize" someone, when they "denounce" his ideas, when they "condemn" what he writes, I imagine them in the ideal situation in which they would have complete power over him. I take the words they use -- demolish, destroy, reduce to silence, bury -- and see what the effect would be if they were taken literally. And I catch a glimpse of the radiant city in which the intellectual would be in prison, or if he were also a theoretician, hanged, of course."

Source: Michel Foucault:The Masked Philosopher. Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and other writings 1977-1984. (page 324)

“Stercilinum magnum stude ut habeas” -The Official Motto the Information Technology Marketers Association

The tech sector is responsible for some of the worst writing in the history of the English language. Among those who’ve bothered to think the matter, that fact is indisputable.

Customers leveraging the Asera platform will have the ability to seamlessly integrate real-time product knowledge into their enterprise eBusiness environments.

Translation: We were conned into buying some overpriced bloatware mass-emailer; we currently are using it to haphazardly spam large numbers of employees with useless data.

By George Orwell (1940)

At present the formation of new words is a slow process (I have read somewhere that English gains about six and losses about four words a year) and no new words are deliberately coined except as names for material objects. Abstract words are never coined at all, though old words (e. g. ‘condition’. ‘reflex’, etc.) are sometimes twisted into new meanings for scientific purposes. What I am going to suggest here is that it would be quite feasible to invent a vocabulary, perhaps amounting to several thousands of words, which would deal with parts of our experience now practically unmeanable to language. There are several objections to the idea, and I will deal with these as they arise. The first step is to indicate the kind of purpose for which new words are needed.

Everyone who thinks at all has noticed that our language is practically useless for describing anything that goes on inside the brain. This is so generally recognized that writers of high skill (e. g. Trollope and Mark Twain) will start their autobiographies by saying that they do not intend to describe their inner life, because it is of its nature indescribable. So soon as we are dealing with anything that is not concrete or visible (and even there to a great extent — look at the difficulty of describing anyone's appearance) we find that words are no like to the reality than chessmen to living beings. To take an obvious case which will not raise side-issues, consider a dream. How do you describe a dream? Clearly you never describe it, because no words that convey the atmosphere of dreams exist in out language. Of course, you can give a crude approximation of some of the facts in a dream. You can say ‘I dreamed that I was walking down Regent Street with a porcupine wearing a bowler hat’ etc., but this is no real description of the dream. And even if a psychologist interprets your dream in terms of ‘symbols’, he is still going largely by guesswork; for the real quality of the dream, the quality that gave the porcupine its sole significance, is outside the world of words. In fact, describing a dream is like translating a poem into the language of one of Bohn's cribs; it is a paraphrase which is meaningless unless one knows the original.

By George Carlin | From Jammin' in NY

As soon as they close the door to the aircraft, that's when they begin the safety lecture. I love the safety lecture. This is my favorite part of the airplane ride. I listen very carefully to the safety lecture, especially that part where they teach us how to use the seatbelts. Imagine this, here we are, a plane full of grown human beings, many of us partially educated, and they're actually taking time out to describe the intricate workings of a belt buckle.

"Place the small metal flap into the buckle." Well, I asked for clarification at that point. Over here please, over here, yes, thank you very much. Did I hear you correctly? Did you say place the small metal flap into the buckle or place the buckle over and around the small metal flap? I'm a simple man; I do not possess an engineering degree nor am I mechanically inclined. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time. Please continue with the “wonderful” safety lecture. Seatbelt--high-tech shit.

The safety lecture continues. "In the unlikely event . ." This is a very suspect phrase, especially coming as it does from an industry that is willing to lie about arrival and departure times. "In the unlikely event of a sudden change in cabin pressure"--ROOF FLIES OFF! " . . An oxygen mask will drop down in front of you. Place the mask over your face and breathe normally." Well, I have no problem with that. I always breathe normally when I'm in a 600 mile an hour uncontrolled vertical dive. I also shit normally.

They tell you to adjust YOUR oxygen mask before helping your child with his. I did not need to be told that. In fact, I'm probably going to be too busy screaming to help him at all. This will be a good time for him to learn self-reliance. If he can program his fucking VCR, he could goddamn, jolly-well learn to adjust an oxygen mask. Fairly simple thing, just a little rubber band in the back is all it is. Not nearly as complicated as say, for instance, a seatbelt.

The safety lecture continues. "In the unlikely event of a water landing . . ." Well, what exactly is a water landing? Am I mistaken, or does this sound somewhat similar to CRASHING INTO THE OCEAN!? ". . . your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device." Well, imagine that, my seat cushion... Just what I need -- to float around the North Atlantic for several days -- clinging to a pillow full of beer farts...

I recently met a young writer who commented that he had so many thoughts -- all of which ran so fast -- that he could not find the proper words to express them. As a result his prose suffered from incomprehensibility. Thus, I decided I'd share with him some advice from my favorite english teacher: George Orwell. Below are some choice excerpts from one of my favorite essays, Politics and the English Language. Perhaps it will provide as good of a starting place for him, as it did for me. Remember, friend, the fact that you have trouble writing means that you are a good writer.

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes.