HOW WRITING IS LIKE SPORTS: A long, somewhat obvious comparative essay

The equipment of my life's work (above) and play (below).

            This blog post is too long, but what the heck. It deals with the two things I’ve given most of my life to.

            At one point in my life, the trunk of my car was filled with the following: a golf bag containing clubs, balls, gloves, tees, and all the other usual golf stuff; a shag bag bulging with 150 or so golf balls; a carry bag containing two tennis racquets and assorted tennis gear like wristlets and vibration dampers; a metal basket containing fifty or so tennis balls; a baseball glove; three baseballs; a baseball bat; a basketball; a racquetball racquet; and a bowling ball.  I estimate that I have spent 45,990 hours of my life playing sports. That’s 5.25 solid years of doing nothing but hitting and throwing balls. I’ve spent about another two years, solid, doing nothing but watching sports, in person and on tv. I lettered in baseball in college. I earned my way through college teaching tennis. I spent eight years at Golf Digest and two years at Tennis magazine; I was the instruction editor at each magazine.

            My car’s trunk is a little tidier now—just golf and tennis stuff there at the moment. All this is by way of saying that I know something about sports: learning them, playing them, and teaching them.

            I’ve spent an even larger portion of my life reading and writing (about 140,000 hours or 16 solid years). I’ve also taught reading and, especially, writing.

            Here (finally) is the point: I know something about sports and I know something about writing, and I think getting good at one is a lot like getting good at the other. Here are some of the things that good writers and good athletes have in common:

Roger Federer's grace and efficiency recall great writing.

1) Efficiency

            Good athletes don’t waste motion: think of a Roger Federer forehand or a Peyton Manning pass. Good writers don’t waste words: think of a Hemingway short story or a J.D Salinger sentence.

2) Idiosyncrasy

            While nearly all good athletes are efficient in what they do, they rarely do it the same way. Anyone who follows golf can tell Tiger Woods’ swing from Jack Nicklaus’ in his prime; anyone who follows basketball can tell Michael Jordan's jump shot from Jerry West's in his prime.

Likewise with writers. Although all good writers are efficient, they all have different voices, different vocabularies, different rhythms, different ways of handling figures of speech, different tones, different ways of constructing sentences. I can tell a David Foster Wallace paragraph from an F. Scott Fitzgerald paragraph instantly, and there’s never any confusing Jane Austen and Emily Bronte.

3) Endurance and persistence

            The best athletes can maintain a high level of effort and efficiency longer than average athletes. Writers, too, require stamina. It is exhausting to write for more than an hour at a time. Novelists spend years on their novels—sometimes twenty years or more. It is easy to give up when you’re writing—just as it is in the fifty-first minute of an overtime basketball game or the twentieth game of the fifth set at Wimbledon.

4) A thorough understanding of the rules

            You can’t play football without understanding what offside and holding penalties are, or the difference between a lateral and a forward pass. You can’t play basketball without understanding what traveling and double-dribbling are. The rules of golf take up hundreds of pages, and the best professional golfers know them in detail.

Likewise, you can’t write well if you don’t know basic grammar and syntax rules, and have a good sense that a word means this and not that.

Both good athletes and good writers know the rules so well that they don’t have to think about them. They can instead focus on making plays and simply writing.

One of the special things about writing, however, is that you can sometimes break the rules and not just get away with it, but achieve something extraordinary (see e.e. cummings’ poetry, for example). LeBron James, poor guy, can’t get away with a double dribble unless the refs are looking the other way.

In general, though, it’s best to know the rules so well that you don’t have to think about them while you show off on the field or on the page.

Ichiro Suzuki hits with the creativity of a poet.

5)  Creativity

            Great athletes finds new ways to do things—ways never before tried. Rafael Nadal hits his forehand like no one else before him. Phil Mickelson can hit flop shots like no one else in golf history (and Seve Ballesteros was magical at inventing shots from impossible situations). Ichiro Suzuki came to the U.S. hitting a baseball like no one else in modern history.

            Likewise, of course, great writers find fresh wording, unprecedented rhythms, unheard-of metaphors to say what they want to say. The wonderful thing for writers is that they can even find new things to write about (the old saw that there are no new ideas under the sun is just wrong, in my opinion) and new forms to create (Twitter novels, anyone?). In this sense, writers can even invent a new game to play—an advantage they have over athletes.

           

6) Awareness of audience

            This is a big one.

            Most athletes of course are aware of those watching them: spectators, coaches, scouts. But the audience I mean here is even more important: the other players on the field. Great athletes are constantly aware of their teammates and their opponents. Derrick Rose knows where everyone is on the basketball court—sometimes, it seems, before they themselves know it. Tom Brady reacts to every move by each opposing linebacker, as if he can see in three directions at once. Novak Djokovich obviously knows not just where his opponent is on the opposite side of the court, but what his tendencies and weaknesses are. Athletes are hyper-aware of others on the field of play: of who they are and what they are like. They have to be.

            Fine writers have a similar awareness of audience—in their case, their readers. Nonfiction magazine writers, for example, must often fine-tune their prose to an audience of specific education, age, culture, and interests; business and technical writers must do the same thing. Fiction writers must consider how the words they use—and the words they leave out—will affect a slightly more general reader, although a writer who expects to be published in The New Yorker may tailor his story to a different audience from one who expects to be published in Playboy—or, more accurately, a writer will send a Playboy story to Playboy and a New Yorker story to The New Yorker, because she knows their audiences. Poets must weigh the effect of every word, metaphor, and image on readers.

              Sometimes students are told to “write for yourself.” That, in my opinion, is nonsense. The only time you write for yourself is in your diary (and many famous writers clearly tailored even their diaries for future biographers). You should write so that you yourself are as satisfied as you can be with what you’ve written, but you should always write with your readers in mind.

Gustave Flaubert (above) was as fastidious in his writing as Ted Williams (below) was in his hitting.

7) Attention to detail

            Tiger Woods has experimented with every club in his bag to be sure it has the optimal loft, lie angle, shaft flex, and grip size; on the practice range, he lays clubs on the ground to check his alignment and ball position precisely. Great hitters like Ted Williams and Albert Pujols check out every single bat they order, one at a time. Roger Federer is fastidious about the shoes he wears on court, the racquets he carries, and the exact string tension in those racquets. Great athletes, in other words, pay attention to the smallest details of their craft, so that nothing impedes their talent.

            Careful writers also pay attention to the smallest details. Nonfiction and technical writers make sure their every fact is correct and every question their readers might have is answered. Fiction writers and poets often struggle for days over a single word or sentence (the novelist Gustave Flaubert and the poet Hart Crane were famous for agonizing over a sentence or word for weeks). Novelists must be careful not to have gaps or inconsistencies in their plots, and every character and motivation must be accounted for at the end. Good writing, like great athleticism, has no unintended loose ends.

8) Repetition with variation

            When they were teenagers, Monica Seles and Andre Agassi are said to have spent weeks at a time practicing just one shot: a week hitting nothing but down-the-line backhands, for example, or a week practicing nothing but kick second serves. Professional golfers hit thousands of six-foot putts in practice, just as Larry Byrd once practiced thousands of three-point shots on his family’s practice court, sometimes in moonlight. The point of all this practice, of course, is to ingrain a consistent, repetitive motion—so deeply ingrained that the body can act on its own in games.

            And yet no two backhands are ever the same. No two six-foot putts are ever the same. No two three-point shots are ever the same. Great athletes ingrain the repetitive motion so that it can be applied in varied situations. In fact—and this at first seems counterintuitive—the repetition is exactly what permits the athlete to improvise and do it slightly differently, but successfully, in the muddle of actual game situations. The ability to adjust to changing circumstances is a direct result of the ability to repeat a motion exactly under controlled circumstances.

            Writers, too, do one thing over and over: They write sentences—long sentences, short sentences, simple sentences, complex sentences, even intentional nonsentences like fragments. They may not think of it as “practice,” in the same sense as Agassi practicing kick serves, but every time a writer writes, he’s practicing his craft, even if the result is thrown in the waste basket. Good writers get good at sentences and the strategies that help to create them well: things like parallel structure, balance, alliteration, and figures of speech. They can “repeat” these things easily, just as Larry Byrd could repeat a three-point shot. Then, when a technical writer faces a writing problem that’s new or a novelist comes to a moment in her work that demands a fresh approach, she can fall back on all that repetition to come up with the exact variation she needs.

              Simply put, athletes and writers practice repetition so that they can improvise more easily when they need to.

Peyton Manning has intelligence a novelist might envy.

And Emily Dickinson had the wit of a quarterback.

9) Intelligence

            Great athletes absorb and interpret information with astonishing speed, and react effectively, just as fast.  Josh Hamilton’s brain gauges the break of a split-finger fastball in hundredths of a second and applies the bat head to the ball with amazing accuracy. Peyton Manning reads zones and makes passing-lane adjustments while simultaneously weighing, intellectually, the blitz of a 230-pound linebacker. Phil Mickelson can read the lie of a ball in the greenside rough with the precision of a surgeon about to excise a tumor. Anyone who thinks these athletic feats are not examples of intelligence has too narrow a view of what intelligence is.

            Fine writers have a slower, but no less remarkable, intelligence. A good technical writer can gather and organize masses of information in ways that help his readers make decisions or understand problems that can affect the future of giant corporations and whole countries. A great poet—Yeats, say, in “The Second Coming,” or T.S. Eliot in “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”—can digest and distill a whole century of human feeling into a few lines or—like Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop—can find the universal miracle in the briefest moment of a life. Novelists from Dickens to Marilynne Robinson turn the chaos of life itself into art—which, in a sense, is exactly what a point guard does.

Michael Jordan (above) and Ann Patchett (below), both graceful in their craft.

10) Grace

            One kind of grace is a person’s ability to do something difficult with elegance and apparent ease, in a way that gives the spectator of that grace a kind of serene pleasure—the pleasure of sharing humanity with someone so graceful. Joe Dimaggio, Roger Federer, and Michael Jordan have grace in common with E.B. White, Ann Patchett, and Donald Hall.

            One can pursue these sports/writing comparisons forever. Great athletes and great writers also share such virtues as vision, wit, and consistency. But just as most athletes know when to get off the field and rest, I shall take a time out now.

Thoughtful writers know when to call a time out.

A CURIOUS CRITTER, THE CONJUNCTIVE ADVERB

A bit strange? Yes. However, conjunctive adverbs are not really cause for alarm.

     This post is about those strange critters called conjunctive adverbs.

     Uh, anybody still reading?

     Yes, I know: “conjunctive adverb” is not exactly the sexiest phrase in the writer’s dictionary. In fact, it sounds kind of frightening. Nevertheless, we all use conjunctive adverbs (“nevertheless” is one of them), and “conjunctive adverb” is a concept worth understanding. Why? 1) Because knowing how conjunctive adverbs work will help you avoid some serious punctuation errors. And 2) because conjunctive adverbs offer tidy ways to achieve two other good-writing goals: clear, strong transitions and paragraph cohesion.

     Here are the most common conjunctive adverbs: however, nevertheless, therefore, otherwise, moreover, thus, also, besides, consequently, meanwhile, then, furthermore, likewise, still. Phrases like “in fact,” “for example” and “on the other hand” also function like conjunctive adverbs.

      Conjunctive adverbs are usually (not always) separated from the clause they are in by commas, as in the following examples:

      Jerry ate beans for supper. Consequently, no one would sit next to him at the movies.

      “Conjunctive adverb” is not a sexy phrase. It is, nevertheless, a concept worth understanding.

      Albert is the smartest boy in the class. He is not always the most sensible, however.

     Jeanine is pretty and athletic. Besides, she treats all her classmates respectfully.

Meanwhile, the pigs, like conjunctive adverbs, continued to thrive.

     When a conjunctive adverb comes at the beginning of its clause, it is almost always followed by a comma, just as adverb clauses and phrases (and most adverbs themselves) are. Examples:

     Meanwhile, the pigs continued to thrive.

     Otherwise, she would have emptied his bank account.

     Likewise, Harold went drinking instead of studying.

     Here, however, are some cases in which the conjunctive adverb is not necessarily separated from the rest of its clause by commas:

      Harold nevertheless got an A on the grammar test.

      He then cut off her credit card account, as well.

      The pigs were thus fat and healthy for the auction.

     It’s difficult to explain why no commas are needed in the examples just quoted. Basically, it’s because one doesn’t pause at the conjunctive adverbs when reading the sentence.

Albert is not, however, always as sensible as a conjunctive adverb.

     Like other adverbs, conjunctive adverbs can be placed in different parts of a clause, like this:

     However, Albert is not always the most sensible student.

     Albert is not, however, always the most sensible student.

     Albert is not always the most sensible student, however.

     This is an important way to tell the difference between conjunctive adverbs and coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but, for, nor, yet, so): conjunctive adverbs can be placed in different parts of a clause, but when a coordinating conjunction joins two clauses, it must always come at the beginning of the second clause. Examples of coordinating conjunctions coming at the beginning of a second clause:

     Wilbur loved spiders, and Charlotte was his favorite.

     The grass was knee deep, but Fred refused to mow it.

     Our puppy refused to eat puppy chow, nor did she like people food.

     Obviously you can’t move the “and,” “but,” or “nor” around in the second clauses here. (“Charlotte and was his favorite”? “She did not like people food, nor”? “Fred refused, but, to mow it”?)

      Therefore, even though some conjunctive adverbs seem to mean the same thing as coordinating conjunctions—“however” seems a lot like “but,” for example, and “furthermore” seems a lot like “and”—conjunctive adverbs do not work like coordinating conjunctions. This is especially true when it comes to punctuation.

      Here is a common mistake on student papers:

      Albert was the smartest boy in the class, however, he was not always the most sensible.

     This is a classic case of that confusing mistake called the “comma splice.” We have two separate independent clauses here: 1) “Albert was the smartest boy in the class,” and 2) “however, he was not always the most sensible.” Here’s the punctuation rule:

     When two independent clauses are joined into one sentence, you must have a semicolon or a comma-plus-coordinating conjunction between them. You can also make them two separate sentences by putting a period between them. “However” is not a coordinating conjunction. Therefore you need a period or a semicolon before it when it introduces a new independent clause:

     Albert was the smartest boy in the class; however, he was not always the most sensible.

     Again, a good way to remember this is to remember that the “however” could go later in the second clause:

     Albert was the smartest boy in the class; he was not, however, always the most sensible.

    

     The problem with the comma splice version of this sentence (“Albert was the smartest boy in the class, however, he was not always the most sensible.”) is that it is confusing. Your reader doesn’t know on first reading whether the “however” goes with the first clause (“Albert was the smartest boy in the class, however”) or with the second (“however, he was not always the most sensible”).

     The comma splice is a bad error. It suggests that you don’t know where one independent clause or sentence ends and the next one begins—a basic concept to understand in English. Also, as I said, the comma splice confuses your reader. (Remember: Most grammar rules are designed, not to make life harder for students, but to make reading easier for readers.)

      Conjunctive adverbs are useful. “However” and  “therefore,” for example, help show the logical connections between ideas; “then” and “meanwhile,” on the other hand, show the chronological connections between ideas. Such connections create “transitions”—those word bridges that join sentences and help readers navigate your paragraphs easily. Transitions tie your paragraph ideas together; this gives them what writers call “cohesion.”

     Don’t be afraid of conjunctive adverbs. They are common and useful. As for their punctuation, simply treat them like other adverbs, and you’ll be fine.

A bit odd, conjunctive adverbs are, nevertheless, nothing to be afraid of.

   

     

SOME VERY, VERY IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES OF EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD WRITING THAT YOU SHOULD ALWAYS TRY REALLY HARD TO APPLY TO YOUR MODIFYING WORDS, a.k.a., SOME ADVICE ABOUT ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

Tidy up your modifiers the way you tidy up your fingernails.

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.—E.B. White, The Elements of Style.

    This post is about adjectives and adverbs, by way of expanding on E.B. White's excellent advice. The first title of this post is an example of badly used adjectives and adverbs.

    Consider the following paragraph:

My extremely hypocritical boss, Mr. Testerman, claims he treats all the valuable, hard-working employees in his workforce alike, but he always and forever shows greater preference to the strikingly attractive, good-looking women in the company that all the men seem to ogle continuously. For example, he recently gave a very large pay increase in salary to Betty B., who is a busty, well-endowed, strawberry-blond assistant manager, although she has been with the company only a mere month. In actual point of fact, Betty, although exceedingly sweet, is a really poor-performing employee. She is so very much distracted by all that abundant male attention that she absolutely forgets to file her reports while she’s forever filing her remarkably long red fingernails and fluttering her dreadfully long brown eyelashes. Nevertheless, Mr. Testerman is exceedingly forgiving of her notorious work habits and, as I said, has even actually rewarded them with a seriously big raise in pay of $100 per each week!

     The writing in this paragraph is not terrible (believe it or not). The writer displays several of the characteristics of good writing: she cares about what she’s saying; she provides some hard facts (the $100 per week raise) and concrete details (the description of Betty) to support and clarify her ideas; she (mostly) sticks to the point of the paragraph; she has clear transitions between sentences; and she writes grammatically.

     And yet I’m sure you recognized that there’s something wrong with the paragraph. Can you put your finger on what the problem is? Right: This writer’s adjectives and adverbs are out of control.

     As E.B. White and other writing experts note, good writing rests, for the most part, on nouns and verbs. Question every adjective, adverb, and modifying phrase; keep only those that serve your purposes.

      Below I strike through the adjectives, adverbs, and modifying phrases that I consider unnecessary in the highlighted paragraph above:

My extremely hypocritical boss, Mr. Testerman, claims he treats all the valuable, hard-working employees in his workforce alike, but he always and forever shows greater preference to the strikingly attractive, good-looking women in the company that all the men seem to ogle continuously. For example, he recently gave a very large pay increase in salary to Betty B., who is a busty, well-endowed, strawberry-blond assistant manager, although she has been with the company only a mere month. In actual point of fact, Betty, although exceedingly sweet, is a really poor-performing employee. She is so very much distracted by all that abundant male attention that she absolutely forgets to file her reports while she’s forever filing her remarkably long red fingernails and fluttering her dreadfully long brown eyelashes. Nevertheless, Mr. Testerman is exceedingly forgiving of her notorious work habits and, as I said, has even actually rewarded them with a seriously big raise in pay of $100 per each week!

     You may disagree with some of my deletions. A case could be made, for example, that labeling Mr. Testerman “hypocritical” immediately sets the subject for the rest of the paragraph and that the color and length of Betty B.’s fingernails and eyelashes adds useful concrete visuals to the paragraph. My counterargument would be that the first sentence shows Mr. Testerman’s hypocrisy (he claims one thing and does another), so that it is not necessary also to label him a hypocrite, and that the color and length of Betty’s fingernails and eyelashes are not relevant. (The paragraph is about Mr. Testerman, not Betty, isn’t it? Or is it?! One wonders about the writer’s real motives here.) In any case, I would entertain the idea that “hypocritical,” “long,” “red,” and “brown” may serve a purpose here, although I would leave them out.

     My point is not that you should delete every adjective, adverb, and modifying phrase but that each must serve some appropriate purpose.

     Here are some principles to apply when judging your adjectives, adverbs, and modifying phrases.

Is there a difference between a sentimental grandmother and a very sentimental grandmother?

1. Question most intensifiers. You can nearly always omit intensifiers like “very,” “really,” “extremely,” “exceedingly,” and “utterly.” (See Roget’s thesaurus for dozens of similar words.) Such intensifying adverbs usually add nothing; often they are the lazy writer’s way of trying to force a more intense reaction from the reader than the writer has earned with strong facts and details. For example, calling your grandmother “very sentimental” is not significantly different from calling her simply “sentimental.” Likewise, a “really hot day” is no hotter in its effect on the reader (really) than a “hot day.” In general, save intensifiers for when they actually add useful information that is difficult to convey otherwise: “very early each morning” is different from just “early each morning,” so “very” is useful here. (However, if the time is the same each day, it may be better to give an actual hour). Intensifiers are also sometimes useful to show politeness or accuracy of feeling: “I am very grateful to you for writing me a recommendation letter” may convey your deeper feeling better than simply “grateful.” (But don’t go so far as to seem insincere: “I am honestly and truly grateful beyond words” would be too much.)

 

2. Avoid empty modifiers. Examples: “awesome,” “nice,” “incredible,” “spectacular,” “tremendous,” “remarkable.” Even “good” and “bad” often say little. What does “It was an awesome ballgame” really tell me about the game (and did you really feel awe)? What does “We had a spectacular meal” really tell me about your meal (and was it really a spectacle)? What does “He was a remarkable-looking man” really tell me about what the man looked like (and what remarks might be made about him)? Indeed, what is a “nice day” or a “bad haircut”? Only nouns and verbs would clarify such concepts, and once you provide them, you don’t need the vague adjectives.

3. Avoid adjective-noun, adverb-adjective, and adverb-verb clichés. Examples: “blind faith,” “warm feelings,” “depressed mood,” “urgent plea,” “full attention,” “gentle breeze,” “valuable employees,” “widely acknowledged,” “openly contemptuous,” “feels strongly,” “waits hopefully,” “runs quickly.” You can no doubt come up with scores of other examples on your own, words so often paired that they might as well be conjoined twins. If you add a modifier to a word, do it because you’ve thought about its usefulness, not because your brain is working on automatic pilot.

If you write "pencils and erasers," do you need to say "yellow" and "pink"?

4. Don’t feel obliged to put an adjective in front of every noun and an adverb in front of every verb. Let most nouns and verbs speak for themselves. Example: “The restless class listened only sporadically to the frowning teacher, who shouted impatiently from behind her cluttered desk, which was widely strewn with bright yellow pencils, pink erasers, and an extremely large tangle of silver and brass keys. The unruly children actively ignored her urgent pleas to immediately stop what they were doing and quickly give her their full attention.” (Actually, this sentence has potential—it at least has some strong concrete detail, and some of the adjectives and adverbs add useful information—but attaching a modifier to every noun and verb is like adding extra sauce to each bite of meat. Which modifiers would you keep in the sentence?)

5. Replace weak adverb-verb and adjective-noun combinations with more precise single words. Examples:

walked awkwardly=staggered, tottered, or hobbled;

moved quickly=hurried, rushed, scurried;

very large=huge, gigantic, enormous;

fell fast=plummeted, plunged, dove;

spoke loudly=bellowed, shouted, roared;

looked intently=gazed, gawked, stared.

Again, Roget’s thesaurus can help you find the more exact word quickly. (Remember: When you use the thesaurus, you’re not looking for fancier words but for more precise words.)

6. Omit adjectives and adverbs that are already “contained” in the nouns, verbs, and other modifiers they modify. Example: “The huge giant tripped awkwardly and crashed down hard onto the soft, fluffy dog in the white snow.” The word “giant” already says “huge.” “Tripped” pretty much contains the idea of “awkwardly.” “Crashed” already suggests “hard,” and “tripped” plus “crashed” already suggests “down.” A “fluffy” dog is already “soft” enough. And if you write “snow,” the reader will automatically perceive it to be white; the only time you need to name the color of the snow is if it isn’t white. So the sentence would more effectively read: “The giant tripped and crashed onto the fluffy dog in the snow.”

7. Use de-intensifiers sparingly. Examples: “rather,” “somewhat,” “a bit,” “quite,” “fairly,” “barely,” and “pretty” (as in “it was a pretty good game”). De-intensifiers can be used for effective understatement (“Jesse Owens was a rather good runner”) and humor (“The poison did quite a nice job of ending the relationship.”) If overused, however, de-intensifiers can leave your writing limp and wishy-washy.

Is "very ecstatic" redundant?

8. Use “absolute” modifiers precisely. A thing is either “unique” (one of a kind) or not unique. There are no degrees of uniqueness—it is an absolute concept—so a thing cannot be “very unique” or “somewhat unique” or (as I read in today’s newspaper) “thoroughly unique.” (Careless writers often use “unique” when they mean “special” or “unusual”; a thing can be “very unusual,” although “rare” would replace that phrase tidily.) Likewise, a thing is either “perfect” or not. Something can be “nearly perfect” but not “rather perfect.” Other modifiers are not so obviously absolute but work the same way. I would argue that words like “hypocritical,” “vicious,” “pregnant,” “ecstatic,” and “functional” cannot sensibly be modified by intensifiers or de-intensifiers. Put an intensifier like “very” or a de-intensifier like “somewhat” in front of each word: “very ecstatic,” “somewhat functional.” Does the result make sense? [Interesting question: Can someone really be “barely alive”?]

9. Don’t use adjectives and adverbs to explain what is already clear. E.B. White notes that, for example, many untutored writers like to add unnecessary adverbs to the word “said” and its synonyms in their dialogue:

“I’m so sorry for what I did,” Joe said apologetically.

“Get out of here! Now!” Jean replied angrily.

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” murmured Joe sheepishly.

The adverbs in the above dialogue are unnecessary; the spoken words themselves do the job.

[Digressive note: In dialogue, the word “said,” alone, is, most of the time, the best word. If you replace “said” with “replied,” “murmured,” “whispered,” “exclaimed” and so on, running through all the synonyms you can think of in order to avoid the word “said,” your prose will begin to sound like a bad romance novel. Ninety percent of the time, just use the word “said,” unadorned, and you’ll be fine. It’s an invisible word in dialogue, so it won't seem repetitious.]

Write "coal" and your reader will automatically perceive "black."

    Likewise, nouns often “contain” an adjective. (See suggestion #6, above.) Again, if you say “snow,” your reader will see “white,” so there’s no need for the adjective. Likewise, “grass” contains “green,” “fog” contains “gray,” and “coal” contains “black.” Only if those things are not the expected color is an adjective useful.

The cool guy's slang will always be ahead of yours.

10. Beware of jargon or slang modifiers. Here are some examples from the business world: “proactive,” “mission-critical,” “actionable,” “game-changing,” “buzz-worthy,” “synergistic.”

“John was proactive in establishing synergistically actionable programs that are both game-changing and mission-critical.”

Such a sentence will impress only the easily impressionable; anyone who thinks for himself will know you’re simply blowing smoke and trying to join the “with it” crowd. Here’s a link to a website that lists some of the worst business jargon .

     You can also find examples from the world of education: “Your son shows optimal positive emotive response to peer interaction during nonclassroom recreational-agenda time periods.” (Translation: “Your son gets along well with the other children during recess.”)

     From the world of government: “Gridlock occurred due to failure of an electronically adjusted, color-coded vehicular-flow control mechanism.” (Translation: “The broken stop light caused a traffic jam.”)

     And from the world of economics: “The Engineering Department experienced advanced downward adjustments.” (Translation: “The Engineering Department laid off some employees.”)

     Such jargon reveals only the writer’s insecurity with plain, everyday language—and his or her rather sad desire to belong.

     As for slang, be aware that as a writer you can never keep up with it. It will always date your writing and make you appear to be trying too hard to be hip, cool, boss, groovy, awesome, phat, bad, bitchin’, bodacious, chill, da bomb, dope, fly, gnarly, kickin’, outasight, rad, righteous, sick, slammin’, smooth, solid, or wicked. You might as well proclaim that you’re the bee’s knees. For fun, here’s a link to an online slang dictionary listing for many of the words that have meant “cool” over the years. You can be sure that as soon as a word enters this dictionary, it is already out of date. The really cool kids are already saying something else. 

Use modifiers effectively and you'll be the bees' knees.

A Paean, Accolade, Tribute, and Encomium to Peter Mark Roget

Peter Mark Roget, author of Roget's Thesaurus

     I come to praise Peter Mark Roget.

     Roget’s International Thesaurus should be on every writer’s bookshelf, within easy reach. Be sure you have the right version of a thesaurus. Later I’ll explain which one that is. It’s not the kind of synonym dictionary which simply lists words alphabetically and piles synonyms next to them. The real Roget’s Thesaurus is much better than that. It doesn’t pile words, it offers them in bouquets.

     I’m not really sure how writers wrote at all decently before Roget’s Thesaurus was first published, in 1852. In some cases, it seems, writers simply made up the words they needed, as John Milton invented the word “pandemonium” for a “place full of devils,” and Shakespeare probably invented “boldfaced,” “coldblooded,” “eyesore,” and “enrapt,” among other words. (There are many words attributed to Shakespeare’s invention, but it’s difficult to know which ones he invented and which ones he simply put into print before anybody else we know of. But I do like to think he invented “droplet” and “newfangled.”)

     I come to laud Peter Mark Roget.

     Roget was born in 1779. He was a smart fellow. He entered university at 14 and became a medical doctor by age 19. He dedicated much of his life to medical education. He wrote some of the first papers about nitrous oxide—laughing gas—and its use as an anesthetic. He was an early expert on the subject of tuberculosis. He even ranged beyond medicine: He invented the log-log slide rule and tried for years to invent a calculator. He helped found the University of London. He gave a paper on the optical illusion that makes turning wheel spokes look static when viewed through vertical slits—an idea that was connected, many years later, to the development of motion pictures. He invented clever chess problems, with clever solutions, and a useful pocket chessboard.

     I come to pay tribute to Peter Mark Roget.

     Roget did not have an easy time of it. His father died when Roget was young. His mother was a little crazy. An uncle committed suicide by slitting his own throat while Roget tried to stop him. His daughter was a depressive whom Roget more or less tried to ignore. He was probably obsessive-compulsive himself. He liked to make lists, possibly as a way to deal with the chaos of his personal life. The best book about him is called The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus, by Joshua Kendall.

     I come to celebrate Peter Mark Roget.

The first page of Roget's original thesaurus. His first category was "existence."

     Around 1800, Roget began making lists of words. He grouped them by “verbal classification,” with categories and subcategories. The 19^th Century was the Age of Classification (of animals, of fossils, of elements). Roget loved to classify. For example, he placed the word “praise” under the general category of “Affections,” the subcategory of “Morality,” the subsubcategory of “Moral Sentiments,” and the subsubsubcategory of “Approbation.” He divided that last subsubsubcategory into parts of speech having to do with approbation: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on. In outline form, it looked like this:

Class Eight: Affections

I. Morality

            C. Moral Sentiments

                        Section 966. Approbation

                                    Sections 966.9-966.14: Verbs
                                                        "praise"

     All verbs and verb phrases having to do with “approbation” (i.e., approval) are listed there, from “approve” to “ring the praises of.” There are 124 different verbs and verb phrases grouped around “praise” in Roget’s Thesaurus. (In the Microsoft Word thesaurus, by contrast, there are just 14 boring synonyms.) Not only that, but in Roget’s system, you could find, nearby, all the nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and interjections related to the concept of praise, like “credential,” “estimable,” “in favor of,” and “bravo!”

     I come to say “Bravo!” to Peter Mark Roget.

     Roget made his word lists, he said, “to supply my own deficiencies.” Apparently he didn’t think he could come up with words easily enough without the list. He completed the first version of his list of words in 1805. He kept building and modifying the list for another 47 years before he felt it was useful enough to publish. (Forty-seven years. The 19^th Century was a patient century.) The first publication of Roget’s Thesaurus was, as I said, in 1852. It was called The Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition. The word “thesaurus” is derived from the Greek for “treasure.”

     I come to offer accolades to Peter Mark Roget.

You should buy a version of Roget's Thesaurus that looks something like this, with the word "original" in the title.

     Roget’s Thesaurus has gone through scores of revisions and expansions since 1852. One of the most important revisions occurred in 1911 and was done by a famous lexicographer named C.O. Sylvester Mawson, who also revised Webster’s New International Dictionary. This year is the 100^th Anniversary of Mawson’s revision. The edition of Roget’s International Thesaurus that I have on my desk is called the “Third,” but it’s really about the sixty-third. It contains eight large general classifications of words (Abstract Relations, Space, Physics, Matter, Sensation, Intellect, Volition, and Affections). Those large classifications are broken down into 1,040 subsubsubcategories of words (Number 996 is where “praise” can be found). The first subsubsubcategory in the book is “existence”; the last is “religious institutions.”

      Peter Mark Roget meets with my approval.

      Roget’s Thesaurus does something else besides offer large conceptual categories of words that belong together: it alternates between word groups that fit one category and word groups that fit in the opposite category. In other words, to oversimply a bit, antonyms follow synonyms. So after the “approbation” subsubsubcategory comes the “disapprobation” subsubsubcategory, with words like “disfavor” and “discountenance” and “deprecate”—more or less antonyms for “praise.”

      I feel no disapprobation whatsoever for Peter Mark Roget.

      Roget set out to “supply [his] own deficiencies.” Ever since his thesaurus was published, it has been supplying the deficiencies of all the rest of us who consider ourselves writers. You should throw away, or at least ignore, any "dictionaries" of synonyms you own. Ignore what you find on the internet. Instead, go out now and buy a hardcover copy of Roget’s International Thesaurus. I could not write without mine.

This is the "approbation" subsubsubclassification of Roget's Thesaurus.

     I beat the drum for Peter Mark Roget.

     And for his thesaurus. To find a word in Roget’s International Thesaurus, you must go through two steps. This is one step more than a dictionary of synonyms requires, but it’s worth it. First, in Roget, you look up the general idea you’re looking for in the back half of the book, where common words are listed alphabetically. (Often, I have only a vague general idea of the concept. The thesaurus is miraculously helpful in leading me to a more precise notion of my idea.) Let’s say you’re interested in the general concept of “saying good things about something” or “praising” it. So you look up “praise” in the alphabetical listing in the back of the thesaurus. There you will see some noun concepts for praise (approbation, flattery) and some verb concepts (laud, glorify). Let’s say you want synonyms that mean “praise” in the sense of “laud.” You see, next to “laud,” the number 966.12. You then look in the first half of the thesaurus—the meat part—for section 966.12, and voila!, there are a bunch of synonyms for “praise.” But, even better, there are hundreds and hundreds of other words—nouns (encomium, tribute), verbs (compliment, flatter), and interjections (hurrah! attaboy!)—right nearby. No synonym dictionary will do that for you. And next door (section 967) are all the words connected to disapprobation, from “censure” to “berate” to “God forbid!” This is all a wonderful way to find fresh and interesting ways—and, more important, precise ways—to say what you want. I repeat: I can’t write without it.

     God forbid writers stop using Roget’s Thesaurus. All hail this great book! Bully for you, Peter Mark Roget!

This is the wrong kind of thesaurus to buy, in my opinion. I recommend you do not buy a thesaurus that says "In A-Z Form" or "in dictionary form." Stick to Roget's original design for his thesaurus, which requires two steps to find synonyms. The extra step is worth it.

HOW TO EDIT A REALLY BAD BUSINESS MEMO

Poor business writing can leave employees with their eyes crossed.

     The following paragraph from a business memo cries out for improvement. How would you rewrite it? Think about such concerns as conciseness, subordination, verb choice, positive constructions, end focus, transitions, and the need for specifics. Also consider the tone of the document and the writer’s persona. If this were sent from the CEO of Giant Federal Bank to the company’s top executives, would the tone be appropriate? (By the way, although I have invented this memo, I have seen actual corporate writing that is this bad.)

It is incumbent upon all top-level Giant Federal executives not to underestimate low-level employees’ experience of understandable feelings of stress, which are not insignificant in these trying and difficult times. There is a need on the part of the Human Resources Department not to wait for problems to come to fruition in the workplace before undertaking more-than-minimal preemptive measures to prevent problems which are related to stress from emerging. The current distressing circumstances in the business world are not at all unusual, but instead a time when it is important for us all not to work separately on problems but as a team in fulfilling all our not inconsiderable responsibilities not only to our customers, but also those who are invested in our company, and of course not to mention the excellent people who work for us. The expectations that we provide our valued employees with great consideration demand much sensitivity on our part. It is with significant confidence in you all that the board of Giant Federal anticipates a successful new year that will not fail to exceed our expectations.

You might now try to spend a few minutes rewriting the paragraph yourself. I’ll wait. (Teachers: Have your students give it a try. They’ll usually do pretty well.)

THE PROBLEMS

You probably noticed most of the problems with the paragraph. Here are the most obvious:

1) Awkward negative constructions. Look especially at all the “nots”: “not to underestimate, “not insignificant,” “not to wait,” “not unusual,” “not to work separately,” “not inconsiderable.” Most negative constructions can and should be replaced by positive constructions.

Weak verbs can't carry a sentence.

 2) Weak verbs. Every sentence but one has some form of the verb “to be” (“is,” “are”) as its main verb. (The only exception is the verb “demand,” which is lost amid vague abstractions in the next-to-last sentence.) Sentences that begin “There are” or “It is” are often weakly constructed. Look for ways to make stronger verbs the engine of your sentences.

3) Wordiness. A long phrase like “it is incumbent upon” is just a long-winded way of saying “should.” “Trying and difficult” is redundant. “There is a need” is a wordy way of avoiding the simple verb “need.” “Not inconsiderable” is a phrase that really adds nothing to “responsibilities” and should probably be deleted. Several other adjectives also serve no real purpose. Always cut unnecessary words.

4) Weak end focus. Each of these sentences ends weakly, failing to emphasize its key point. Try to end each sentence with its main point or “nugget.”

5) Missing transitions. There is nothing here to connect one sentence with another. Usually, try, near the beginning of a sentence, to refer to something that was said previously in the paragraph (preferably in the previous sentence), then move the sentence on to its new idea. This is sometimes called the “known-to-new” approach to transitions. (Note: Obvious or unnecessary transitions can be heavy-handed, however, so try to make your transitions deft and subtle.)

6) Weak subordination and reduction. The main ideas of the sentences here are often lost in a fog of subordinate clauses, and minor ideas often get too much grammatical space or weight. Put main ideas in main clauses, lesser ideas in subordinate clauses or phrases. Some clauses or phrases can even be reduced to single words.

7) An utter lack of specifics. What kinds of “problems” does the memo mean? What kinds of solutions does it suggest? Always try to give specific examples to explain and support general statements or claims.

A mean or condescending tone undermines your writing.

 8) Inappropriate tone. Is it appropriate to call some employees “top-level” and other employees “low-level”? Is the Human Resources Department the only one responsible for employee morale? In the third sentence, is it appropriate to talk about employees almost as an afterthought, less important than customers and stockholders? Is the language here friendly, accessible, and encouraging? Is the syntax (sentence architecture) easy to follow and inviting? Is the “persona” (public impression) of the writer that of a friendly, encouraging CEO? Always consider how your readers will feel about the language and syntax you use, as well as the content of your message. In business writing, try to establish and maintain a “we’re all in this together” tone and, when possible, an encouraging, friendly persona.

     Here is one way I might rewrite this paragraph:

 

     In these difficult times, all of us at Giant Federal should recognize the stresses our employees are experiencing. All departments—with Human Resources leading the way—should anticipate stress-related problems in the workplace and take measures to prevent them. Employees worried about layoffs, for example, may try to undermine each others’ work or spread destructive rumors about their colleagues in order to increase their own chances of being retained. Each department, working with the advice of Human Resources, may wish to head off such problems by arranging a series of workshops and other events devoted to building a sense of teamwork, loyalty, and optimism among employees. To this end, the company will support weekly informal outings for employees—for example, to see a local baseball game or to have a Friday afternoon company-wide barbeque. Indeed, such stressful times call for all of us to work as a team in order to meet our responsibilities not just to our employees, but to our customers and stockholders. With that in mind, please monitor our employees’ feelings closely and sensitively. If we all do that, we can anticipate a successful new year.

     You can compare the original paragraph with the revised paragraph yourself to see the now-positive constructions, strengthened verbs, clearer subordination/reduction, and improved conciseness.

     I do wish to point out some of the transitional phrases, however, because I've not discussed transitions in previous posts. Here are some of the transitions in the revised paragraph: “for example,” “such problems,” “to this end,” “such stressful times,” “if we all do that”—all of these phrases refer to something earlier in the paragraph, helping to clarify the connections between sentences.

     Also note the addition of specific examples of stress-related employee behavior (undermining each others’ work, spreading rumors) and of possible preventive measures (workshops, ball games, barbeques).

     Finally, note the improved tone—especially the shift from “you should do this” to “we should all work on this.”

     We should all try to write business documents more carefully.

Well-written documents will make your employees happier.