How to unstuff a sentence

Student-writers often believe that the secret of good writing is a reliance upon bigger and "better" words. Thus the haphazard thesaurus use that I wrote about last month. Another danger for student-writers involves the assumption that good writing is a matter of stuffy, ponderous sentences. Stuffy sentences might be explained by the need to make a required word-count, but I see such sentences even in writing assignments of only modest length. Most often, I think, these sentences originate in the mistaken idea that stuffiness is the mark of serious, mature writing.

A writer can begin to unstuff a sentence by looking closely at each of its elements and asking if it is needed. Here is an extreme example:

To begin, it is important to note that the theme of regret is an important theme in "The Road Not Taken," which was written by Robert Frost, and that evidence for it can be found throughout the entire poem.

"To begin": Like "to conclude," this phrase is an unnecessary, empty transition. If a point is coming early (or late) in an essay, trust that a reader can see that. Removing "To begin" involves no loss of meaning.

"It is important to note": Focusing on a point implies that the point is worth writing about, doesn't it? Removing these words too involves no loss of meaning. (As an undergraduate, I often wrote "It is interesting to note," until a professor drew a line through the words each time they appeared in an essay.)

"The theme of regret is an important theme": It's redundant to say that the theme is a theme. And is there any difference between "the theme of regret" and regret?

"'The Road Not Taken,' which was written by Robert Frost": Sentences with "which was written by" tend toward stuffiness. Here, the writer can refer to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," a savings of four words.

"Evidence for it can be found": It's often smart to avoid the passive voice ("can be found"). But changing the verb form (to "the reader can find evidence") leaves a larger problem. If this theme is an important one in the poem, is it necessary to say that the poem contains evidence of it?

"Throughout the entire poem": There's no difference between "the entire poem" and "the poem," especially when the word "throughout" is already in play.

A writer might rethink this 39-word sentence in various ways:

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is, above all, about regret. Evidence that the speaker second-guesses his decision is abundant. (20 words)

A careful reading of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" shows that regret runs through the poem. (17 words)

Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" is a poem about regret. (11 words)

Regret colors every line of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." (11 words)

The point of unstuffing a sentence is not to simplify thought or eliminate nuances of meaning. The point is to express a thought, whatever its complexity, with clarity and concision — the real marks of good writing.

Related reading
All "How to improve writing" posts (via Pinboard)

Hello, Lifehack readers

If you've arrived via my post How to unstuff a sentence, you might be interested in reading some posts devoted to improving real-world sentences:

How to improve writing (previous posts from Orange Crate Art)

Abe's Shades

"Thanks for the picture, Dad. It's great! Do you mind if I put it on my blog?"

"Not at all."

"Should it have a title?"

"Abe's Shades."

My dad sent this portrait of a hipster Lincoln along with a letter this week.

[Pen and ink by James Leddy, 2007.]

More by James Leddy: Happy holidays, Boo!, Hardy mums

Apostrophes and corn

I sometimes like to write letters to companies whose products I use and admire. In August 2005, I wrote a letter to the Morris Reisman, president of Pro Sales Industries, manufacturer of some well-made, handy kitchen tools:

Dear Mr. Reisman:

I write as a happy user of your vegetable and corn brushes. It's a pleasure to use products such as yours, which work as advertised, are designed to last, and are made in the United States.

I have one small suggestion for improvement. The back of the corn brush package reads "That's when your corn is at it's peak of freshness." The word it's (meaning "it is") in that sentence should be its (possessive pronoun). The mistake is a small blemish on an otherwise great package. When the time comes to print a new batch, I hope that you can make this change.

In closing, I wish you continued success with your products.

Sincerely,

Michael Leddy

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail bearing a mysterious mark: RATTLE OK. Inside I found a letter of thanks from Morris Reisman and some sample products: a Rinse-No-More Mushroom Brush, a Scrub n' Wash Fruit & Vegetable Brush, a Silk Away Corn-on-the-Cob Brush, and a Nature's Way Banana Keeper. Cool!



And the text on the back of the Silk Away package has been revised:



Its, not it's: the best gift of all. Thanks, Mr. Reisman!

Apostrophes aside, these brushes really are wonderful -- the ones that I bought in August 2005 are still good as new.

[Morris Reisman died on November 17, 2009, at the age of seventy-six.]

Overheard

In a hallway:

"The nineties? What's that?"

"That's ancient history."

Previous "Overheard" posts

Paris and Niles Crane

In Iliad 13, the Trojan prince Hector, who has been leading an assault on the Greek ships, finds his brother Paris off to the side of battle. Hector, furious, begins berating Paris, and ends his short speech in despair:

                                             "Troy is doomed.
The whole towering city is as good as gone."

And then, for one strange and hilarious moment, Paris sounds remarkably like Niles Crane:

"I see you're in a testy mood, Hector.
I may have held back from battle before,
But not now. My mother didn't raise
A total weakling."

(Translated by Stanley Lombardo)

Related posts
Homer's Rumsfeld
Paris, pretty-boy

Patients like Philoctetes

"We have created a subclass of patients like Philoctetes with modern medicine. They are abandoned on their islands to live long, but have we risen to the challenge of taking emotional care of them?"

Pediatrician Lyuba Konopasek and classicist Bryan Doerries (his words above) find in Sophocles' Philoctetes a way to help medical students understand the needs of patients receiving long-term care.

The Difficult Patient, a Problem Old as History (or Older) (New York Times)

Somme diary

From the Telegraph:

A British soldier's pocket diary of life in the trenches during the early days of the Battle of the Somme have been made public for the first time. Pte Walter Hutchinson was a young shop manager when he enlisted in the 10th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment. His poignant record of the battle, in 1916, includes a moving account of the first day during which more than 62,000 comrades died. Pte Hutchinson's handwritten account gives a graphic story of his own survival as wave after wave of soldiers went "over the top" only to be cut down by German fire.

The battle of the Somme (July 1-November 13, 1916) stands as one of the most horrific battles in history, with more than a million casualties. (Note: The figure given in the article seems to be an estimate of first-day British casualties, not of soldiers killed.)

The diary is being offered for sale at an auction in London tomorrow.

Forgotten diary captures horror of the Somme (telegraph.co.uk, via notebookism)

Excerpts: Diary from the Somme (telegraph.co.uk)

Battle of the Somme (Wikipedia)

Update:

The diary of a First World War soldier who fought in the Battle of the Somme has been sold for £7,000.

Written by Walter Hutchinson, the diary went for almost ten times its original guide price at an auction in London.

Somme diary sold for £7k (UKTV)

April 16, 2015: Save for the Wikipedia article, the links are gone.

Dine?

I wonder:

Does anyone out there "dine"?

I, for one, don't. I "eat."

It's lunchtime.

Navel-gazing with the Greeks

From Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day:

omphaloskepsis (om-fuh-lo-SKEP-sis) noun

Contemplation of one's navel

From Greek omphalos (navel) + skepsis (act of looking, examination). Ultimately from the Indo-European root spek- (to observe) which is also the ancestor of suspect, spectrum, bishop (literally, overseer), despise, espionage, telescope, spectator, and spectacles.

I've liked the word omphalos -- so strange, so sonorous -- from my first acquaintance with it in James Joyce's Ulysses. In "Telemachus," Buck Mulligan calls the Martello tower where he and Stephen Dedalus live "the omphalos." The word reappears in Stephen's consciousness in "Proteus":

The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your omphalos. Hello! Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one.

I later learned (yes, bass-ackwards) about the part the word plays in Homer's Odyssey. The island of Ogygia, where Calypso keeps Odysseus as her love-slave, is said to be near the sea's omphalos, suggesting a center point, as far away from any mainland as possible. Ogygia is the middle of nowhere.

The passage from Ulysses is taken from an online edition:

Ulysses A hypertextual, self-referential edition