[PRL] Bad Writing and Bad Thinking

Mitchell Wand wand at ccs.neu.edu
Sat Apr 17 15:34:49 EDT 2010


The Pullum article in Language Log is funny, and right on, of course.  I
went back and read Orwell's article before I posted the original.  It is
indeed pretty awful.  I don't often agree with Stanley Fish, but in this
case I suspect he was right.  I suspect Orwell was really more concerned
with political language ("Mistakes were made...") than with scientific
writing.

But the point remains:  good writing will make a good paper better.

Short sentences will endear you to overworked program committee members.

Here's another passage from the same essay by Orwell:

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will
> ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say?
> What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer?
> Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask
> himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything
> that is avoidably ugly?
>

(Yes, it would have been better without the "thus", and you can't say "he"
any more).  But those are still good questions to ask about one's writing.


--Mitch




On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 3:06 PM, David Herman <dherman at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:

> Feh.
>
>     http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003366.html<http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/003366.html>
>
> See also:
>
>     http://www.google.com/search?q=language+log+orwell
>
> Dave
>
> On Apr 17, 2010, at 10:54 AM, Mitchell Wand wrote:
>
> Link:
> http://chronicle.com/article/Bad-WritingBad-Thinking/65031/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en(via
> shareaholic.com)
>
> Orwell leaves us with a list of simple rules:
>
>    - Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are
>    used to seeing in print.
>    - Never use a long word where a short one will do.
>    - If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
>    - Never use the passive where you can use the active.
>    - Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if
>    you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
>    - Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
>
>
>
>
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