An Example of Improving Conciseness

I know, the technical term is concision, but only we geek tech writers and English teachers use that term. Anyway, the third rule of good expository writing is to be concise—no extra words.

So here’s an example of someone promulgating the idea of not being wordy, (or over-written, as the commenter says elsewhere). The passage is in the comments to a review of Toy Story 4 in the Washington Post. (Edited for conciseness and punctuation.) It starts with a quote from the review.

The disaster, in this case, is 2019’s Summer of Sequelae, as dismal a movie season as audiences can remember as one spinoff has followed the other with a graceless thud. Thankfully, “Toy Story 4” arrives just in time to redeem filmgoers’ faith, if not in humanity, then at least in the humaneness of inanimate creatures who have more heart, pluck and conscience in their plastic pinkies than most real-life adults. 

How about this:

The disaster in question seems to be the entire blockbuster season of 2019; a string of graceless thuds. Thankfully, “Toy Story 4” arrives just in time to redeem film-goers’ faith — if not in humanity, then at least in character.

I think the passage could be more concise than that, even:

The blockbusters of 2019 are a string of graceless thuds. “Toy Story 4” arrives in time to redeem the season.

or even

Toy Story 4 redeems a season of graceless thuds.

That’s not as colorful as the original, but this site promulgates expository writing, whose goal is to convey the content, not the writing style—perhaps drier than necessary for a movie review.

PS—I ran into another article about the movie. This was the last sentence:

In a summer of stupid sequels, ‘Toy Story 4’ is a visually dazzling delight

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I guess talking like a teenager is contagious, though I’ve heard adults use both “like” and “goes” for “said” for at least twenty years…

…though I’ve never heard anyone actually say “omg.”

Okay, where’s the lesson? Here:

Don’t use these expressions when you write to explain something, unless you’re quoting someone who talks like that.

Several years ago I began to read Mike Peterson’s excellent daily essay (editorial? article? blog?) named Comic Strip of the Day. (Look for the ones that start with CSotD.) I read it as faithfully as I read A Word A Day. Mike and I don’t necessarily always see eye to eye on politics, but I think that reading material I don’t necessarily agree with keeps me open-minded, and his stuff is thoughtful and well written, not the opinionated drivel I see in places like comment streams.

Anyway, early on, I read a misuse of the expression “beg the question,” so I wrote him a note about it. He did me the courtesy of a reply, saying, if I remember correctly, that everybody uses the expression that way nowadays, so he felt okay with that usage. That was the end of it; we didn’t have an actual argument.

Recently I ran into this: (the italics are his)

This prompts ( but does not beg ) the question of why they would hire Molly Ivins in the first place. 

http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/06/11/csotd-grey-lady-down/

Yay! To logicians and us curmudgeons, “prompts” is correct, “begs” is not. Good for him!

Here are a couple links to some of my posts on the subject in case you’re curious to know what I’m talking about:

What does “Beg the Question” Mean?
More Question Begging
Getting Things Right

Sometimes English uses “them,” “they,” or “their” (all plurals) when a good singular form doesn’t make sense. I haven’t run into this exact usage before, (last panel) so I thought I’d share.

So there you have it. Is it right or wrong?

When I was a kid, I learned that “pair” and “couple” meant two of something, and “few” meant three of something.

Over the years, I’ve seen that except for “pair,” those definitions aren’t quite true. I just ran into this example for the meaning of “couple” to be rather flexible:

Maybe you can think of some examples of vague fews.

But when you’re writing expositorily, always use “two” and “three,” of course.