11.29.08

Do as I don’t, not as I say—royal family edition

Posted in redundancy, wordiness, write tight at 10:46 am by Bill Brohaugh

Quoted from England’s Daily Express, which I know is the world’s greatest newspaper because the paper itself prints that precise slogan under its logo, and you must believe everything you read, particularly everything you read in the world’s greatest newspaper:

“It seems to me that you need to remind people every now and then that you can’t communicate to people in a language unless you know the grammar and the syntax and, indeed, the punctuation,” the prince told a Georgian Group awards ceremony at The Ritz in London.

The prince quoted above is England’s Prince Charles. Bless his royal-blue heart, his intentions are good, but his attempt to “communicate to people in a language” needs a bit of precision. This flabby sentence should feature all the precision of the Buckingham Palace guard, yet exhibits the wasted motion of fans in an artist-formerly-known-as-Prince (the other one) mosh pit. Let me pick royal nits:

1. The statement is imprecise and, in a sense, not true. You can communicate with grammar, syntax and punctuation lapses. We do it all the time. “I ain’t got none of them cookies no more, they’s gone.” Are you confused about my cookie inventory? Prince Charles meant that you can’t communicate precisely, without distraction, and with authority if you haven’t mastered the big three.
2. The good prince’s declaration not only fails to address but also itself employs another obstacle to communicating to people in a language: squishy and indirect word use. To wit:
   • “It seems to me.” If it didn’t seem to you, why would you even say it? Unnecessary. Besides, the phrasing has a subtle sense that he is at odds with general thinking (”they say one thing, but it seems to me that . . . ”)
   • “you need to.” you must is shorter and more powerful.
   • “remind people every now and then.” remind people occasionally would have been more direct, and more in tune with an audience sitting in the Ritz.
   • “to people.” Who else would you be using grammar, syntax and punctuation to communicate to? The dog? Rover doesn’t care if the command “Rover sit” should feature a comma. And not many inanimate objects can hear you at all, not even the chair in Neil Diamond’s “I Am, I Said.” Delete “to people.”
   • “in a language.” The phrase’s construction and placement weakens its connection to the language elements about to be listed. See my edit below.
   • “the.” Instead of “the grammar and the syntax,” how about “its grammar and its syntax”? Despite the being a definite article, “the grammar” gives the noun a general, unconnected air. Its clearly ties grammar to language.

My suggested revision isn’t poetry, but it would likely carry far more of the authority and confidence we expect of the man who will be king: “You can’t communicate precisely and credibly without command of the language’s grammar, its syntax and, indeed, its punctuation.”

And then I’ll take it even further: “You can’t communicate precisely without command of grammar, syntax and, indeed, punctuation,” as grammar, syntax and punctuation are components of language and few other things (name one), and, combined with the word communicate, these three words clearly imply language.

In other words, to fight the good fight, write tight.

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