Arggh!
Qualifiers. They're unnecessary frills and furbelows clogging up our writing.* Just get on with it. Say it. Be confident. Don't hedge your bets with qualifiers. We all do it - I know I'm a culprit, but I edit the tentative 'I think' out of the sentence before I show it to anyone. (And sometimes the I know, but decided to leave that one in.)
This post was inspired by coming across the following in a student covering letter: I feel I have been a high achiever. I feel??? Doesn't that imply that, while the writer feels they've been a high achiever, the actual high achievements they should have received have eluded them. I have been a high achiever, implies straight As - which was the situation in this particular case.
"It was a very large horse." Was it really? Wasn't it just a large horse? Or perhaps a Shire horse, or bigger than a house, or ginormous, or vast or seventeen hands at the shoulder or anything apart from very large.
I think qualifiers weaken your prose. Actually, it's not just me who thinks that, and I feel I can prove it by writing: Qualifiers weaken your prose. I can prove it.
Of course, sometimes you want to soften what you say so you don't appear a deranged dictator, which is when qualifiers come in handy. I think. But for the most part, don't be tentative, use strong nouns and verbs so the qualifiers are redundant. Have courage and make statements.
*I originally wrote 'They're like unnecessary frills...'
4 comments:
Your first sentence sounded like something Sir Humphrey would have said in "Yes, Minister" and we all know his skill was in clouding the issue with words. :)
for the most part i'm wholeheartedly in agreement with these sentiments - though whilst i do think that, by and large, there's a strong case to be made for greater succinctness and clarity, there's also something about the sleep-inducing qualities of a long, ponderous sentence that's genuinely, and gently, appealing (in particular, i find, late at night... :-)
LOL! Qualifiers can make your writing almost unusual and quite unique, rather than being a bit similar to everything else out there... :-D
Love the Sir Humphrey reference, it's exactly what civil servants traditionally do. Hence the campaign for Plain English.
I remember reading a review of a book that basically said it was ideal bedtime reading, more effective than sleeping tablets.
I read an essay today that started many sentences with something along the lines of 'On the other hand, it can also be argued that..." Rather unique, I thought.
Post a Comment