Synonyms and Modifiers, or Why your English teacher isn't helping now

I'm still obsessing about the "effective" that was used in the technical writing manual I discussed some weeks back. It's not that I'm opposed to using things like adjectives or adverbs or think that writers should just use nouns and verbs (though I've always thought that "See Dick run. Run, Dick, Run" was a kind of poetry). It's just that technical writing (writing to explain) is different. It's different from business writing (which is often trying to persuade or record facts) and different from creative writing (which is often evocative). In technical writing all that matters is clarity: Does the reader understand what you're trying to say.

Obviously, to achieve clarity, there are things that you must do: use the reader's vocabulary, make it clear to the reader what your topic is (what you're talking about), and ensure that the reader has enough background information to tackle your new material (either because the reader for your writing brings this with them or because you've provided it in your document).

There are a bunch of things you should not do, also--primarily, don't use modifiers or synonyms. If the author of that technical writing manual had decided to avoid using adjectives and adverbs unless absolutely necessary then he/she/it wouldn't have written the words "effective manual". Instead, the author would have to describe what an effective manual would look like--and supply some criteria for other writers to know when they were doing a good job.

And, as long as I'm complaining about modifiers, let me point out that negative modifers (no, not, none) are especially awful. The clarity value of a sentence with two negative modifiers is a negative number. This sentence with two negatives
                   Don't exit Word if you haven't saved your document.
Isn't nearly as good as the positive (or, at least, non-negative) version
                   Save your document before leaving Word.

Synonyms (using several different words that mean the same thing) are even worse. When you put a modifier into your document, the reader knows that you probably meant something. When you start using multiple words to mean the same thing, how is the reader going to know that "computer", "machine", and "server" are all referring to the same thing. In fact, if the reader believes that you're choosing words for a reason, the reader should assume that you mean different things when you choose to use different words. By using synonyms you could send the reader on a wild (and pointless) hunt for a meaning that doesn't exist.

I blame high-school English teachers. Or, more exactly, the impact of high-school English teachers. Teachers, in an effort to increase your vocabulary and make your writing more evocative, encourage their students to use modifiers and to use a wider variety of words. But technical writing is different: use modifiers when you have no choice (and know exactly what your reader thinks the modifer means) and don't use synonyms at all.

Reading or read

• Medea and Her Children by Ludmila Ulitskaya
• The Rohan Master: A Book of Hours introductions by Marcel Thomas, Millard Meiss, commentary by Marcel Thomas
• Unmapped Dreams: The Charottetown stories by J. J Steinfeld

Inappropriate Adjectives, Or You use that word so much--I don't think it means what you think it means

I was looking over the "technical writing manual" for a client of a client (it wasn't really a manual, it was more of a style guide).  What amazed me was the number of adjectives they used in the guide:

• Our goal is to create effective manuals
  
• Documents should be organized into a logical structure
• Documents should have comprehensive coverage of the material

As in most cases, these modifiers don't add any value for the reader. When the author of this document used "effective", "logical" and "comprehensive," the author did one of the following:

• Just put the words in because they "sound good" (i.e. no thought at all)
  
• Assumed that these words mean the same thing to everyone (sadly, not true)
  
• Used the words to disguise the fact that the organization couldn't agree on criteria for authors
  

That last bullet probably requires some explanation: Frequently, in official documents, modifiers are "weasel" words that disguise the fact that the author, managers, and readers don't actually agree on anything: The modifier means whatever the current reader needs it to mean. In my client's client's style guide, if the organization can't establish what criteria to use to judge user manuals then they substitute the word "effective"; if the organization can't figure out how to determine whether or not a document covers everything it should then they say that the document has to be "comprehensive"; if you can't agree on how your writers are to organize their documents then you substitute the word "logical."

Using modifiers like this does give the organization a lot of flexibility: You can change the meanings to do whatever you need when the time comes. You pick the right definition for the documents you want to praise; pick a different definition when you want to punish the author. I can see the discussion now: "Your document structure isn't logical", "Yes, it is!", "No, it isn't!" The winner isn't the person with the right document structure, it's the person with the most clout in the organization--very advantageous if you're the person in charge.

What these words don't do is actually help the organization's authors do a good job (or, at any rate, a job that meets the company's criteria). When you use modifiers in your documents, you--more often than not--do the same thing: You fail to support your readers.

My recommendation: Omit all modifiers (adjectives, adverbs, phrases) unless you have a gun to your head.If you do include a modifier, make sure it means exactly one thing to both you and your readers--or just tell your readers what the word means to you.

Reading or read

• JLA: One Million by Grant Morrison

Intensifiers, or It's a reasonable language

I get frustrated with editors who insist that our language is logical. It's not. At best, it's reasonable.

For instance, I still run into editors who forbid the double negative (which is fine with me as a style guide issue) because "two negatives make a positive." Apparently, when someone says "I ain't got no money" these editors completely misunderstand the speaker even though every one else standing around knows exactly what the speaker means: he's broke. These editors don't seem to realize that negatives are, like "very" or "really, really", intensifiers. These people would also argue with Thomas Jefferson in forming a "more perfect union" because, after all, once you're perfect you have to stop--you can't go beyond perfect. Yet every reader knows what he means.

Statements like "ain't got no", "more perfect", "a little bit pregnant" all convey meaning and are prefectly reasonable things to say, however much they violate the rules of logic. Based on our purpose with the audience we may choose to avoid them but we can't claim they're wrong.

Someone said that in English a single negative is a negative ("I've got no money"), and two negatives is very negative ("I ain't got no..."), and two negatives can even be a positive ("What he hasn't got is no money"), but two positives can never be a negative. To which someone in the audience responded sarcastically "Yeah, right."

Reading or read

• All Star Superman, Vol. 1 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
• All Star Superman: v. 2 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
• Gods Bedfellows by David Carpenter
  

Rules, or Why Grade Six Still Matters

I was watching Mythbusters and heard one of the hosts comment "We did good." Grammatically, of course, he should have said "We did well" because he was modifying a verb ('did') which requires an adverb ('well'); he could use 'good' only if he was modifying a noun (e.g. "We did a good job"). As I noted in an tweet a few weeks back, I think we're seeing the death of the adverb. Over time, I wouldn't be surprised to see the adverb form of most modifiers disappear into the single adjective form--"good" will replace "well" and be used to modify both verbs and nouns.

What's interesting about this is how many people react to this idea when I mention it. Most people are horrified and see it as the language "degenerating." Notice: They don't say it's 'wrong'--they apply a moral term like 'degenerate.'

Equally interestingly: no one seems to feel it's bad if we add new rules to the language. When discussing an article I'm editing with an author, I've occasionally brought up a grammatical rule that the author has obviously never heard. The strongest reaction I get is "Really? I didn't know that." No one ever says "That's stupid. This whole language is getting too complicated." But ignore a rule that the author knows about...and it's just another sign of the world sinking into confusion.

In general, English has gotten simpler over time. For instance, we have fewer "cases" than the languages English descended from (cases refer to how words change depending on their grammatical purpose). Really, in English, only pronouns (he, she, you, I, etc.) have cases: We use 'I' as a subject and 'me' as an object. We used to have more--the pronouns have have actually lost cases. The instrumental case (a special form when something was used as a tool) existed in Old English but has disappeared from modern English. The possessive case is now handled by adding 's to the end of any noun or pronoun--I don't know if that even counts as a case. The subsumation of adverbs into adjectives is just part of that trend.

Most people seem to feel that our language is fixed and immutable--that there is a set of rules that have been laid down by...well, I'm not clear who is supposed to have laid down the rules. In North America people are deeply attached to the rules they were drilled in during grades five and six. You can add more rules to that set but any attempt to reduce that set of rules is morally repugnant. Somehow, the idea has arisen that the only contribution current generations are allowed to make to the language is to add new nouns. We're no longer allowed to change the meaning of existing words and adding new verbs is regarded with deep suspicion. And we are certainly not allowed to modify any of the rules!

But ask people if they want to speak like William Shakespeare did and they'll tell you "Oh, no. Our current language is much better." Makes you wonder how they think we got from Will to now.

Reading or Read

• See the Child: A Novel by David Bergen
• A Nurse's Story by Tilda Shalof
• On War by Carl von Clausewitz
• Myths and Legends of India by William Radice (ed)