Three Things

First, something unusual. We have a person in a thought bubble talking to the person who has the thought bubble. First time I’ve seen that.

Next, we have a writing lesson. It’s about being concise.

• “Unique” means “one of a kind.” That’s an absolute; you can’t be very one of a kind. You either are or you aren’t.
• “Individual” is also one of a kind, so “unique individual” is redundant. You don’t need both words.
• Solution: be concise. Say something like “Delray is unusual.” “Unique” all by itself would work, too.

Finally, the getting-along-with-others lesson. Both Marcy and I have a rule: Don’t correct someone’s English unless they ask. Especially if the person is your boss.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

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• Concise means you take out unnecessary words. For example, write “daily,” not “on a daily basis.”
• Terse means you take out too many words. Terseness introduces ambiguity.

Here’s an example of ambiguity caused by terseness:

The sign leaves out the possessive adjective that tells whose hands to wash. Readers shouldn’t have to pause to figure out what you mean. Say enough to remove ambiguity, but say no more.

This post first appeared on The Writing Rag.

Ordinarily, good English avoids using two negatives in a sentence. I’m thinking of sentences such as these:

I ain’t got none.
It don’t make no never-mind.

But we do have a way to use two negatives, when it’s what we mean. I’d say it’s a kind of understatement. I ran into a nice example the other day:

Meanwhile, there’s little reason to think that stealthy, sophisticated hackers aren’t already exploiting BlueKeep in secret, says Jake Williams, a former NSA hacker and founder of the firm Rendition Infosec.

https://www.wired.com/story/bluekeep-worm-windows

You can get away with a sentence like that if you want to sound “literary,” but when you’re into being clear and concise, something like this is better:

We think that sophisticated hackers are already exploiting BlueKeep in secret.

Not as colorful, perhaps, but more to the point. And that’s what you want, isn’t it?

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

The last post was rather heavy duty, so here’s something lighter. The lesson is important, though. Being concise is one of the five main characteristics of good expository writing. Look up “concise” in the search box in the upper right corner, or request that essay about five critical techniques of good writing mentioned in the column on the right.