KAROLINA WISNIEWSKI
<Opinions Editor>
The Economist has its critics. Bloggers have taken to calling it “comically stupid”, other publications deride its biased outlook, and even Chomsky publically commented on its misrepresentations and lack of credibility. Although there is merit to some of these assertions, The Economist also has its strengths. Despite my unbridled anglophilia which predisposes my opinions, I’d venture to say that its healthy dose of dry wit and straight-shooting nature are appealing on several levels. It’s entertaining without being gimmicky, and informative without being dry. Disagreements aside, there’s one thing that even the most stringent critics of The Economist have to admit: its writing is impeccable.
There are many virtues one can prescribe to The Economist, but humility isn’t one of them. Presumably aware of the excellent writing they publish week after week, the people behind the publication decided to compile a how-to-be-awesome-like-us manual, The Economist Style Guide. Though most of the book is full of technical things to keep in mind (when should you write out abbreviations? what is the difference between per capita and per caput?), there is some sound advice on writing style. It’s easy enough to check your grammar or look a word up in the dictionary, but the real art of writing lies in the ability to convey ideas elegantly and clearly. Instructions on how to write correctly are abundant, but advice on how to write well is more difficult to come by and requires one to place a certain degree of faith in the source of this advice.
If, like me, you are a fan of The Economist, you will likely find the suggestions in this book to be useful, easy to adopt and incredibly helpful. If you aren’t, then you will probably find them entertaining anyway, as a testament to The Economist’s elitism and snobbery. Either way, lets turn to some highlights.
Right from the start, the Style Guide lays out some useful principles in the introduction, borrowed from George Orwell:
– never use a figure of speech you are used to seeing in print
– never use a long word where a short one will do
– if you are able to cut out a word, always do so
– never use a jargon word if you can avoid it (but what about all my mens rea jokes?)
It goes on to say that writers shouldn’t be too stuffy (more on this later), too chatty (never use “surprise, surprise”), too arrogant or too pleased with themselves. It is on these (and a few other) fundamental principles that the Style Guide is based.
The entry on clichés starts off by admitting that these figures of speech have emerged precisely because they convey an idea economically and effectively. However, this is a double-edged sword: by the time a cliché becomes a cliché, it should probably be retired. If there’s one thing the writers of The Economist abhor more than stale and overused figures of speech, it’s clichés that are misconceived to be “snappy, trendy or cool”. Some examples include: “Generation X”, “back to the future”, “flavour of the month”, and my personal favourite, “where’s the beef?”
On a related note, they turn to some “vogue” words, which are also cautioned against: “address” (as an alternative to “deal with” or “attend to”; this one falls prey to the stuffy criticism), “famously” (“always redundant, nearly always irritating”) and “individual” (“favoured by the wooden-tongued as a longer synonym for man, woman or person”).
Short words: use them. Jargon: don’t. Admittedly, this one is tough for lawyers, especially when writing about law for an outside audience. Difficult though it may be, I always appreciate the reminder that not everyone is going to follow legal terminology (or laugh at my mens rea jokes, apparently).
Another great entry is that of unnecessary words. When given free reign in Obiter articles, I’m so excited to be writing something other than memos and facta that I am inclined to inject my writing with as many adverbs, adjectives and flourishes as possible. The Style Guide tells me that this habit adds nothing to my writing except length. The word “very” is an especially common culprit; it can almost always be left out. Other examples abound: why say cutbacks when you can say cuts? Track record instead of record? Weather conditions instead of weather? The list goes on. Unnecessary words (as well as jargon, for that matter) are used for one of three reasons: to “dignify nonsense with seriousness”, to “obscure the truth” or to “obfuscate”; in essence, the Style Guide suggests there’s never a good reason for them.
When it comes to slang, readers are urged to avoid “ugly and overused expressions” like “the bottom line” or “guesstimate”. Starlets need not always be “scantily clad” and lawns are not always “manicured”. By taking the time to search for a fresh word, rather than relying on a “seventh-hand phrase”, your writing will be less tedious and hackneyed.
Given the lengths to which the Style Guide has gone to classify all varieties of redundant, ugly and overused language, you might think that an entry called “horrible words” would be unnecessary. And you would be wrong. My favourite part of the book, this section opens with a sentence that embodies the perfect combination of condescension and wisdom: “Words that are horrible to one writer may not be horrible to another, but if you are a writer for whom no words are horrible, you would do well to take up some other activity”. Some highlights include “facilitate”, “prestigious”, “proactive” and the always groan-inducing “savvy”.
Legal writing has little to do with any other kind of writing. But while the rules of the former do not apply to the latter, the reverse is often true. Many of the points raised in the Style Guide can be applied to legal writing. In fact, they should be – there are few times when clarity and concision are more important. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. I’m sure we are all too familiar with the exercise of attempting to read an inscrutable, convoluted or otherwise infuriating case.
Although I was aware that there existed a distinction between writing correctly and writing well, I was never able to identify where exactly this distinction lay. Though I don’t purport to fully comprehend it now, The Economist Style Guide has brought me a little closer to doing so, for which I am grateful.