Don’t be Ambiguous!

“Be clear” is one of my five gold rules of technical (and any expository) writing. Here’s a good example of what I mean. Is eWeek saying that the updates have critical flaws?

Apple Patches Critical Flaws in iOS 12.1, macOS 10.14.1 Updates

You have to read the article to find out. Inside the article they got it better:

Among the updated releases are macOS Mojave 10.14.1, iOS 12.1 and watchOS 5.1, fixing high-impact flaws…

We hear of flaws being in operating systems, and we also hear of fixing things with an update. They could have put “with” right before “Updates” in their headline. Presto! Ambiguity removed!

They could also have changed the word order:

Apple Updates iOS12, macOS, and watchOS with Patches.

For that matter, whatever comes after “with” is unnecessary:

Apple Updates  iOS12, macOS, and watchOS

That last suggestion isn’t as dynamic, perhaps, but shorter is good. Being concise is another of my rules. And it gives room to mention all three updates in the headline by getting rid of all those numbers. Want longer anyway? How about:

Apple Updates  iOS12, macOS, and watchOS, Fixing Critical Flaws

Sorry—I couldn’t find a comic to illustrate this. Maybe my next post will have a comic.

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English, being light on inflections, uses word order a lot. Classical Greek, for example, is heavily inflected, so word order can be played with more than it can be played with in English. They even have a figure of speech called chiasmus, in which they arrange the words symmetrically in the sentence (for example, noun, adjective, adverb, verb, adverb, adjective, noun) and you use the inflections to figure out what refers to what. 

Sometimes getting the word order correct in English can be tricky. I have mentioned where “only” should go several times. (Search for “only” in the search box in the upper right corner to see some examples.)

So this Buckles comic, first panel, gets it wrong, at least in expository writing. Perhaps we’re more relaxed in conversational speech.

The rule is that adjectives go right before the word they modify, so technically, the dog is saying that it’s Paul’s good pair, not good shoes. 

Not a lot of difference there; it could go either way, and you might even make the excuse that “pair of shoes” counts as one word. Well, maybe.

But when you’re explaining something, be on the lookout for ambiguity, and avoid it.

One of my favorite hobby horses—getting “whom” correct.

Subordinate clauses are stumbling blocks for a lot of people because these clauses often put the direct object first, where the subject usually goes. So the nominative form, “who” gets used, even though the actual subject is “you.”

Whenever you have a who/whom decision to make, first decide what is the verb, then look for the subject. Then decide whether the “who” word is the subject or the object. “Who” is a subject, “whom” is an object.

As a rule, you should put similar parts of a sentence together. For example, if a sentence has two subjects, put them together.

Tom and Dave played tag.
S               S        V       DO

What happens when you don’t put them together? You get confusion!

Tom played tag and Dave
S        V     DO           ?

Huh? Is “Dave” some new kind of game that Tom played? After all, it’s right next to the direct object.

That example is trivial, perhaps, so here’s an example from real life:

Access in divisional and functional areas is too broad in some systems, increasing security risks for potential misappropriation, due to IT [the Information Technology department] owning systems instead of the business areas.

Look at the part after “due to.” “IT” is the subject, “owning” is the verb, and “systems” is the direct object. What is “business areas”? I don’t think IT would be owning business areas, so let’s rewrite the sentence so you can tell that “business areas” is another subject:

Access in divisional and functional areas is too broad in some systems, increasing security risks for potential misappropriation, due to IT instead of the business areas owning systems.

That makes more sense! Go thou and do likewise.

English is a relatively uninflected language, so word order is important. In declarative sentences, for example, we put the subject first most of the time, and the verb after it. It can get tricky when we insert modifiers. The rule is to put modifiers as close to what they modify as possible. Here’s an example of breaking this rule:

After President George W. Bush announced a plan to return to the Moon and move on to Mars in 2004, NASA began to consider how best to carry out that vision. ​

We moved to Mars in 2004? What is this, science fiction? I suppose the likelihood that most readers would know that we’re not on Mars yet would make them think a bit to figure out what did happen that year. But as a writer you want the information to flow into your readers’ brains effortlessly. So put that date where it goes, at the beginning:

In 2004, after President George W. Bush announced a plan to return to the Moon and move on to Mars, NASA began to consider how best to carry out that vision.

Now the readers can tell exactly what the writer means without having to interrupt themselves to figure out what’s going on.