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NOTES FOR TALK
My War Against Bureaucratese
Talk at Kendal at Ithaca, July 21, 1998
I’m introducing myself this evening because Joan Bechofer, who was to have
introduced me, claims she has another, unshirkable, obligation. My own suspicion is that she
may have decided to follow the advice of the popular song, “If you can’t say anything real nice,
it’s better not to talk at all, that’s my advice.” For those of you who don’t know, that comes
from “Please Don’t Talk About Me when I’m Gone.” The rest of the introduction I think will
come from what is, in any event, a dismayingly egocentric talk. So I’m just going to plunge
into the subject matter.
Within a month of my assuming the chairmanship of the Civil Aeronautics Board—that
was 21 years ago—I sent a memorandum to all the members of my staff on the subject of the
style of Board Orders and Chairman’s Letters. I’m going to take the liberty of reading just
parts of it: “One of my peculiarities, which I must beg of you to indulge if I am to retain my
sanity, is an abhorrence of the artificial and hyper-legal language that is sometimes known as
‘bureaucratese’ or gobbledygook. May I ask you please, therefore [I’m skipping] to try very
hard to write Board Orders and, even more so, drafts of letters for my signature, in
straightforward, quasi-conversational humane prose, as though you were talking or
communicating with real people.”
I suggested a test. “Try reading some of the language you write aloud, and ask yourself
how your friends would be likely to react. And then decide, on the basis of their reaction, that
you still want them as friends.” And then I offered a number of examples, and I’ll give you
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only a few: “Every time you—.” You understand, I was reading drafts of Orders by lawyers,
and while I must protest that some of my best friends are lawyers, some of the worst
perpetrators of gobbledygook are, of course lawyers. “Every time you’re tempted to use
‘herein’ or ‘hereinabout’ or ‘hereinunder’ or, similarly, ‘therein,’ thereinabove’ or
‘thereinunder,” and the corresponding variants, try ‘here’ or ‘there’ or ‘above’ or ‘below,’ and
see if it doesn’t make just as much sense.” One of my lawyers approached me the next day and
said, “You didn’t say anything about ‘supra’ and ‘infra.’
I responded, “Rome was not
destroyed in a day.”
“The passive voice is wildly overused in government writing. Typically its purpose is
to conceal information. One is less likely to be jailed if one says, ‘He was hit by a stone,’ than
if he says, ‘I hit him with a stone.’ The active voice is far more forthright, direct, humane.”
“This one I recognize is a matter of taste. Some people believe in maintaining standards
in language, and others do not. But unless you feel strongly, would you please try to remember
that ‘data’ has for more than two thousand years been plural, and is still regarded by most
literate people as plural. . . . And that—this one goes back even longer—the singular is
‘criterion’ and the plural is ‘criteria.’ Also that, for at least from the seventeenth through most
of the twentieth century, ‘presently’ meant ‘soon’ or ‘immediately,’ not ‘now.’ The use of
‘presently’ to mean ‘now’ is another pomposity. If you mean ‘now,’ why don’t you say ‘now’?
Or, if necessary, ‘currently’?”
Next one. “Could you try to make the introduction of your letters somewhat less
pompous?
Like, ‘This is in reference to you letter dated May 24th 1993 regarding’ or
‘concerning’ or ‘in regard to’ or ‘with reference to.’ It doesn’t sound as though it’s coming
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from a human being. Why not, for example, ‘The practice of which you complain in your letter
of May 12th is one that’s troubled me for a long time.’ Or, even better, ‘I’ve looked into the
question you raised in your letter of May 12th, and I’m happy to be able to report—.’”
“Why use ‘regarding’ or ‘concerning’ or ‘with regard to’ when the simple word ‘about’
would do just as well? Unless you’re trying to impress somebody. But are you sure you want
to impress anybody who would be impressed by such circumlocutions? There’s a similar
pompous tendency”—which, by the way, is running riot these days—“to use ‘prior to’ when
you mean ‘before.’” Nobody ever says “before” anymore. It’s got to be “prior to” because that
sounds so much more impressive. There are times when “prior to” makes sense, “when what
comes before is a condition of what follows, as in a prior condition.”
Now, “I know ‘requesting’ is considered more genteel than ‘asking.’ But ‘asking’ is
more forthright. Which one do you want to be?”
“One of my pet peeves is the rampant misuse of ‘hopefully.’ The word is an adverb,
and makes sense only as it modifies a verb. It means ‘with hope.’ It’s possible to walk
hopefully into a room, if you’re going into the room with the hope of finding something, or not
finding something there. It is not intelligent to say, ‘Hopefully, the criminal will make his
identity known.’ Because he’s not going to make it known ‘hopefully.’ He won’t do it with
hope in his heart. And he’s the subject of the verb, ‘make.’”
“My last imposition on you today is the excessive use of ‘appropriate’ or
‘inappropriate,’ when what you really mean is ‘legal’ or ‘illegal,’ or ‘proper’ or ‘improper,’ or
‘desirable’ or ‘undesirable,’ or ‘fitting’ or ‘not fitting,’ or, simply, ‘this is what I want (or do
not want) to do.’ Before I came to the Civil Aeronautics Board I was Chairman of the New
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York Public Service Commission, and one of the very sincere, valued members of the staff that
had the job of writing our draft opinions, which I had always to rewrite, wrote that the
Commission didn’t want to do something because ‘we do not deem it appropriate.’ At the risk
of embarrassing him—but very kindly—I said, ‘Do you have a child?’ “Yes.” “Why don’t you
call your kid into the room some day and say, “I don’t want you to do something because I
don’t deem it appropriate. If that kid doesn’t laugh you out of the room—who wants kids like
that?” He never did it again.
The memo had an electric effect. The Washington Post published it in full, “as a public
service.” It also commented on it in an editorial, entitled “The Sayings of Chairman Kahn.”
That’s when there was a lot of talk about The Sayings of Chairman Mao. Third, I got a public
proposal of marriage from a columnist in the Boston Globe. She said, “Alfred Kahn, I love
you. I know you’re in your late fifties and are married, but let’s run away together.” I was
nominated for the Presidency by a newspaper in Kansas and for the Nobel Prize by a
newspaper in Singapore. I was appointed shortly after to the Usage Panel of The American
Heritage Dictionary, a position that I have continued to hold ever since.
My war on
bureaucratese was a major feature of my first, full-hour appearance on the McNeal-Lehrer
Report—for which, I was informed, the demand for copies was greater than for any previous
program—featuring especially my admonition to the CAB staff: “If you can’t explain what
you’re doing in plain English, you’re probably doing something wrong.”
Finally, I received a communication from a man—a real hero, named Jim Boren. He
was either the brother or the cousin of David Boren, at the time a senator from Oklahoma. He’s
the head of an organization, which he founded, The International Association of Professional
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Bureaucrats. Their motto is, “When in doubt, mumble.” They hand out pencils with erasers at
both ends. In his letter, he said he wanted to come to my office and present me, in the presence
of reporters, with a Rejection Scroll, a copy of which I have, which begins: “Whereas, the
Honorable Alfred E. Kahn, Chairman of the CAB, has persistently insisted that the lawyers of
the CAB write in simple language, and whereas it is universally noted that all lawyers write
with non-directive fuzziness, but lawyers who double as bureaucrats write with the clarity of
Chaucer, the profundity of the Federal Register, and the gravity of the Congressional Record,
therefore, in sad recognition of Chairman Kahn’s subversive campaign against the protective
language of bureaucracy, the Board of Directors of INATPROBU—the International
Association of Professional Bureaucrats—hereby award Alfred E. Kahn the INATPROBU
Rejection Scroll, and proclaims him ineligible to receive the Order of the Bird and other
INATPROBU awards which are presented only to those steadfastly applying the principles of
dynamic inactivism, subject, however, to adjustive reconsideration, on the basis of future
performance in the spirit of constructive apathy and/or cordial arrogance. Given under the seal
this tenth day of February 1978.” It is or has been on a wall at my office.
One other occasion on which it was easy for me to talk about this hobby of mine was
when I was invited to give the Keynote speech at a conference sponsored by a very lively
organization, Women Communicators in Government. The topic of their session was Public
Affairs Communication. I began by declining apologetically to discuss the subject. It was a
matter of principle with me, I said, never to “communicate” with people. So how could I in
principle talk about people communicating with other people? If you don’t do it yourself, is it
moral to recommend it to others?
I would, however, I said, be glad to talk to them.
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Communicating, I explained, is only one degree better than “interfacing” with people. And
giving or accepting “inputs” from them—let alone give them an opportunity to input. [That
talk earned me an editorial in the Washington Star on the occasion of my leaving the White
House, “Farewell to a Jargon Hunter.” I’m so proud of it, I attach a copy to this transcript of
my talk.]
Shortly before that I gave a speech on environmental policy in Washington, and at the
end somebody asked me, “How does your position differ from that of Secretary Schlesinger?”
(Jim Schlesinger, a friend of mine—to whom we had offered a position in the Cornell
Economics Department, when I was Chairman—who was then Secretary of Energy). And I
said, “Well, the main difference is that Secretary Schlesinger uses ‘input’ as a verb.”
Whenever I hear people talk about input, it conjures up the image of a German golfer standing
on the green and “inputting” the ball: the verb, I presume, is “hereingeput.”
Oh yes, there’s another thing communicators do, especially in government. They
engage in “outreach.” I had though of putting a motto put up on the wall of my office at the
CAB (but never did—along with one I claimed publicly to have had to look at when I had to
fulfill some ridiculous regulatory responsibility: “Is This What My Mother Brought me up to
Do?”): “Outreach makes me upchuck.” Sometimes the demands of pomposity and dynamism
converge—as in using “input” as a verb, “specifics” for “details” and constantly
“implementing” things and “addressing issues.”
And, of course, no brisk government servant would want to be a member of a
committee or a commission. Oh no. It has to be a “task force.” Which conjures up the image
of Admiral Nimitz sailing into Midway with his task force ready to destroy the enemy. Time
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and again I’ve received the advice, “Why don’t you organize a task force?” I’ve responded,
“Only over your dead body.”
A couple of years ago I received a postcard: “I would like more information on how the
Executive Air Guide case impactfully helps to reach the corporate decision maker.” That’s
really dynamite.
Although my original memo to the CAB staff began as what I thought was simply an
aesthetic reaction or revulsion to what I was being forced to read or what was pretending to go
out in my name, it soon became clear to me that it sprang also from a conception of the proper
role of government. By my standards the function of a government employee is to be helpful to
people—to real people—rather than condescend to them, or inflate one’s own stature or
importance. In short, the one thing a government employee should avoid is being or looking
like a pompous ass. One of the nicest things that happened to me occurred only two weeks
ago: somebody came up to me on an airplane and said, “You’re Alfred Kahn, aren’t you? I
followed everything you did in Washington. You were never a pompous ass.”
The subject matter of my original memo at the CAB grew into a kind of avocation.
While still at the Board I began more or less systematically to compile and to try to analyze the
different kinds of derelictions, the various sources or explanations of this tendency to reverse
peristalsis. I soon realized that the phenomenon was much more complicated than mere
bureaucratese. I ended up with a forty-page closely typed set of examples, organized by
categories. Upon my return to Ithaca, I continued to supplement the list, beginning by reading,
or reading, or rereading, the classic book by the two Cornell people, Strunk and E.B. White,
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The Elements of Style—from whom I get some of the best examples that would belong in the
first category, identified in my memo—defects of “Logic and Grammar.”
Language and grammar can be beautiful if used with precision. Language can make
fine distinctions. It can convey complex ideas. It can describe subtle relationships. But if
abused, it can do just the opposite. Let me first give you a couple of examples of the first
category of these lapses in grammar and logic—which are the same thing—dangling phrases
and clauses, and drifting adjectives. Here are three examples from Strunk and White: “Being
in a dilapidated condition, I was able to sell the house very easily.” “Wondering irresolutely
what to do next, the clock struck twelve.” “As a mother of five, with another on the way, my
ironing board is always up.” And this one I got from a birdwatcher, who happens to be a
relative: “Using binoculars, the birds fill the viewing area and their heads and mouths are right
before my eyes.” The image of these birds using binoculars is an intriguing one. “Based on” is
frequently similarly misplaced or abused, hung out there somewhere in limbo. It’s a favorite
usage of lawyers and technical witnesses: “Based on this background, we had decided—.” I
like the image of “we” based on a background—whatever that means.
“Based on the
foregoing, action will be deferred.” Use of the passive voice makes that one even more
constipated. How about: “On the basis of these considerations, we will do such-and-such?”
Another rampant abuse of logic that you can find everyday if only you’re sensitive to it
is the misplacing of “only.” Decades ago there was a movie with Silvia Sydney and John
Garfield, called “You Only Live Once.” Surely it’s not only living that one does once. You
have your first romance only once. Try to put the “only” next to the word to which it applies.
You live only once. That makes sense. Here’s one from a Board draft, which of course did not
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get out to the public because I saw it first: “The Board [that’s the CAB] can only amend a
certificate after a hearing.” They were clearly not saying what they meant. And, indeed, what
they said was wrong. The Board can do a lot of things to a certificate, after a hearing. It isn’t
that it can only amend it. It can grant it. It can rescind it. It can burn it. What they clearly
meant was, “The Board can amend a certificate only after a hearing.” One of my successors as
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who shall be nameless, was quoted (misquoted, I am
sure) as having spoken deprecatingly about Cornell graduates who have “only studied
accounting.” Well, what would he have them do with accounting besides study it, while in
school? Consume it? Play frisbee with it? Obviously what he meant, and deprecated, was that
they were studying only accounting. Here’s one from a TV news report: “The plot was only
discovered when police stopped a suspicious-looking driver.” It wasn’t only discovered; it was
presumably also frustrated. Obviously what they meant was that the plot was discovered only
when the police—. Move your “onlies”; you’ll enjoy it.
My lawyers loved to use “nor” when they meant “or,” so that they were constantly
committing double negatives: “The application doesn’t disclose X, nor Y.” There was a
cartoon in the New Yorker, of a woman with a coat and her bags packed, walking out of a room.
She turns to her husband and says, “I’m leaving you.” He says, “I could care less.” She says,
“Exactly. That’s why I’m leaving you. Your slovenly rhetoric.” Obviously what he meant
was, “I couldn’t care less.”
Then there are malapropisms. Some of our lawyers insisted on using “mitigate” when
they meant “militate.” When something militates against something else, it tends to operate
against it or to counteract it. When it mitigates something else, it makes it less severe or harsh.
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Closely related is the blurring of useful distinctions. “Diction” is or used to be a very
useful word.
Today, or for the last thirty years, it has been used as synonymous with
“enunciation.” But if “diction” is the same as “enunciation,” who needs diction? And what are
we going to use for the word “diction,” which means “choice of words”? Example: In The
Pirates of Penzance, the Major General says, “I’m telling a terrible story/But it doesn’t
diminish my glory/For they would have taken my daughters/Over the billowy waters/If I hadn’t
in elegant diction/Engaged in an elegant fiction/Which is not in the same category as telling a
terrible, terrible story.” I recall happily a radio announcer, David Ross, who did indeed
enunciate elegantly, receiving an award for “diction”: the conferrers of the award should have
received the order of the bird for the same reason!
People use “fortuitously” when they mean “fortunately.”
But we have the word
“fortunately,” so why waste “fortuitously” on that? And besides, what are we going to use
then when we mean “fortuitously”? You could say “serendipitously,” but “serendipitously”
often includes the idea of being not only fortuitous (notice my elegant locating of “only”) but
also desirable or fortunate. So, the use of “fortuitous” to convey its intended and unique
meaning has now been destroyed; whom can I sue for that loss?
One that you surely have been irritated by is “disinterested.” A marvelous word. It
means “impartial because of having no stake in the outcome.” Surely nine out of ten TV
announcers or newspaper reporters use it as meaning “uninterested.”
But we’ve got
“uninterested”; why substitute “disinterested,” and then what are we going to use for
“disinterested” when we need it?
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Now I get to the heart of my advertised subject:
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“Officialese, bureaucratese,
pomposity,” all intended to inflate the importance, the up-to-datedness and the dynamism of the
speaker. If I never see the word “implement” again I will die happy. I’ve seen it used in
contexts when you would have instead said to your wife, or your spouse equivalent, or child—
unless you have some kind of relationship with them that I don’t even want to hear about—
“begin.” The Board was going to “implement air service,” by which the scribe evidently meant
“initiate” or “authorize” it.
“The Mexicans should be permitted to implement air service.”
How about “offer”? or “provide”? “The Mexican government should have an opportunity for
implementation of the rights it obtained in our treaty.” How about “make use of”? or “take
advantage of”?
Another word that I hope I never see again—almost never—is “address.” Some of you
would apparently have all the people in the world do nothing but “address” things—especially
“address issues.” Everything is an “issue.” How about “handle,” “deal with,” “confront,”
“treat,” “analyze,” “discuss,” “answer,” “consider,” “rule on,” “solve,” “dispel” or merely
“respond to”? “He did not address our concerns.” (Wait. I’ll get to “concerns” in just a
minute.) The ex-deputy administrator of EPA’s superfund once said that the superfund,
“addresses the cutting edge of the toxics program.” Boy, that really conjures up an image—
which could also, of course, go under the heading of “mixed metaphor.” How do you address a
cutting edge? It sounds as though it might be painful. I myself have vowed that I’m going to
confine my addressing to envelopes, audiences and golf balls.
“Finalize.” I hate the practice of converting adjectives or nouns into verbs, but I’m
gradually surrendering, as I am also on “contact,” because I really can’t think of another single
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word as apt; or “prioritize,” which is even more pompous. But I do draw the line at “impact,”
which is usually used incorrectly even as a noun, because it clearly implies or should imply a
percussive or dynamic effect, a forceful contact. Back to “finalize.” How about “make final,”
or simply “adopt,” or “confirm”? It’ll make you think you sound less important, but people
will like you better. How many times have I seen “pursuant to” when you could just say
“under”? Or “subsequent to” when you mean “after”? Or “prior to” when you mean “before”?
There are other such pomposities, such as adding a syllable to give additional weight or
importance. Nobody talks uses “methods” anymore, it’s always “methodology.” Come to
think of it, nobody who is anybody or wants to be anybody “uses” anything; it’s always
“utilize.” Nobody has “motives” anymore, it’s always “motivations.”
One of the all-time greatest perpetrators of most of these sinful practices was Alexander
Haig, former Secretary of State in the Reagan administration.
Jim Boren, head of that
International Association of Professional Bureaucrats, sent me a wonderful issue of his
publication, Mumbletypeg, the Voice of the Bureaucrat, with the headline “To Haigify: To
Formulate and/or Explain Foreign Policy in Terms that No One Can Understand.”
“Haigification,” he says, “is similar to fuzzification and profundification. But its distinction as
a new Washington verb form lies in its specific application to the discussion of foreign policy.
The first major contribution to the language of the Potomac by the Reagan administration.”
Here are a few Haigifications: “Now, as you parcel it out in the context of individuals or
separatist movements or independence movements, of course the problem is substantially
different and the restraints, and the ability to apply retaliatory action, is sometimes not only
constrained but uncertain, and so I caveat it this way.” Would you like me to read that again?
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On your own time. “But be that as it may, they today are involved in conscious policy, in
programs, if you will, which foster, support and expand this activity, which is hemorrhaging in
many respects throughout the world today. Finally, when I said, I think, to somebody last
night, that was consciously ambiguous, that statement, consciously ambiguous in the sense that
any terrorist government or terrorist movement that is contemplating such action I think knows
clearly what we are speaking of.” And here’s a Haigification that I collected myself: He once
called for reducing the debate on foreign policy “down to a lower level of fixation.”
I had a memorandum from a member of my staff in the White House, “Note to Fred
from Ron. Subject: Something I’ll bet you didn’t know. ‘Nutshell’ is a verb. I’d just come
out of a meeting at which a White House staffer asked me, ‘How do we “nutshell” this
substance-wise?’” How do we nutshell this substance-wise?
As these examples demonstrate, often the motive is not so much to inflate the
importance of the speaker, but it’s just to be dynamic—as in using “impact” even as a noun, let
alone as a verb. Or merely fashionable. We have a new word: “proactive,” instead of
“active.” Perhaps as distinguished from “anti-active” or “pro-passive”? And also, now, I keep
coming across people using “incent” as a verb: “We want to incent them to do something.” I
wouldn’t be caught dead using “incent” in any context! Verb, noun, preposition, anything
else. “Let’s engage in a dialogue.” Oh my God, everybody engages in dialogues! And uses
“dialogue” as a verb. Well, what ever happened to the distinction between “conversation” or
“discussion,” and formal, typically written, “dialogue,” as in a drama? Or even “debate”? The
trouble with getting into debate is that then we get into the ubiquitous use of “issue.” You
can’t get through a day without something being called—everything’s an “issue”! A week or
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two ago I heard on the radio, “We need a party that will fight for issues like affordable health
care.” I’m willing to fight for “goals”—bur for issues?
In my long memo, I identified a category of “mirror-image crimes.” For example, one
side of the mirror would be what I call “over-specification”: in flat violation of the general rule
that it’s rude to point, lawyers tend to point all the time. And even pointing and emphasizing
their pointing when it’s entirely unnecessary. They use “that” when “the” would be sufficient.
Or “those” or “such” “where no such forceful indication is required. “That part of the
legislative history that looks toward the future.” How about “The part of legislative history that
looks toward the future”? “The second category covers those situations in which—.” Try
deleting “those”—“The second category covers situations in which”—and ask whether the
reader won’t fully understand what you’re talking about. “By our designation”—this is a
quote—“of certain city pairs as co-terminals, we intend to permit the carriage of local traffic
between those city pairs.” Just substitute “them” for “those city pairs.” “A distinction might be
drawn”—this is another quote—“between those situations in which [something] and those
situations in which [something else].” Just leave out “those.” That practice is very closely
related to a disease of lawyers, “pronounophobia.” Lawyers cannot bear to use a pronoun,
even when the antecedent is absolutely clear. I will have orders given to me that list “TWA” at
the beginning of every paragraph—seven, eight, nine times—rather than “the airline” or “the
carrier” or “it” or “they.” “It is ordered (1) that a certificate be issued. (2) Said certificate shall
be—.” “The certificate shall be” is perfectly sufficient. Here’s one: “The parties are entitled to
know the Board’s decision on said motion.” My comment: aw, come off it! That’s, as I say,
related to lawyers’ nauseating repetition of nouns, when a pronoun would do.
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The other side of that mirror, the crime of excessive specification, excessive pointing, is
what I call “false gentility.” Having just given you some examples of violations of the rule that
it’s rude to point, I want now to give you some examples of cases in which people go to great
lengths to avoid pointing, when pointing is exactly what’s called for. The most rampant
example is the constant use of the verb “indicate.” Nobody ever says anything anymore; they
merely “indicate.” Obliquely. Presumably with their eyes averted. Every time you’re tempted
to use the word “indicate,” except in cases in which the mere oblique indication or suggestion
is what you want to describe, try “say,” or “state,” or “assert,” or “claim,” or “aver,” or even
“asseverate.” And take some satisfaction in being bold and direct. It reminds me of Ring
Lardner’s classic statement, “‘Shut up!’ he explained.” The modern equivalent would be,
“‘Shut up!’ he indicated.”
Other examples of false gentility: “We would also stress.” Why not just, “We also
stress”? Be bold. (I was going to say, “Be a man!” but consider the obliquy to which that
would subject me!) Others are “request” when you mean “ask.” Or “utilize” when you mean
“use.” Or “thank you for your correspondence,” when you mean, “thank you for your letter.”
And how many times do people say, “I share your concern,” (even when obviously they do
not!): it makes me want to swear loudly and make obscene gestures.
That brings me back to the passive voice, which people often use in an attempt to be
genteel: where it seems impolite just to say something straight, it’s better to say it backwards.
Of course, as I have already pointed out, the other reason is to avoid responsibility or to conceal
information. The use of the passive is for this reason ideally suited to a faceless bureaucrat
who wants to remain faceless: “it was decided,” avoids saying “I decided—and what are you
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“Appropriate” and “inappropriate” serve the same purpose:
As
purported explanations, they avoid adding any information to the mere fact of the decision that
they purport to explain, as well as sounding more genteel. Consider the less genteel but more
informative alternatives: “We rejected your application because we didn’t like it,” or “because
we think it’s lewd,” or “illegal,” or because “we don’t like it—or you.” Or “we decided it was
inappropriate” when we want to say, “we just don’t want to.”
Here’s one last one that I took from an Order of the Board: “The cost of a separate
certificate proceeding at this time prior to the result of this experiment would be premature and
delay the implementation of services which are in the public interest. In this regard, the overall
costs to Pam American from such a proceeding could turn out to be disproportionate to the
profits the carrier will actually achieve through the provision of this service. Therefore, to
require the carrier to undergo a certification proceeding in order to perform the services
contemplated would be an undue burden on the carrier since such action would have the
practical effect of precluding the proposed operation.” Here’s what I suggested: “Try ‘before’
instead of ‘prior to,’ ‘introduction’ instead of ‘implementation,’ substitute ‘that’ for ‘which,’
delete ‘in this regard’ and ‘overall,’ change ‘from’ to ‘of,’ change ‘the first carrier’ to ‘it,’
change ‘achieve’ to ‘earn,’ change ‘through the provision of this service’ to ‘by providing this
service,’ change the second ‘the carrier’ to ‘it,’ delete ‘contemplated,’ change the next ‘the
carrier’ to ‘Pan American’ and change ‘such action’ to ‘it’ for starters,” I said.
Concluded my long memo: “I would be distressed if you took these remarks
personally.
Please instead realize that the game of expressing yourself clearly and
straightforwardly, and even more, of identifying pomposities and irrationalities in others, can
A.E. KAHN
- 17 -
NOTES FOR TALK AT
KENDAL AT ITHACA 7/21/98
be a great deal of fun. If you can’t explain what you’re doing in plain English, you’re probably
doing something wrong. [Forgive that repetition.] And accept my assurances finally that it will
pay dividends. People who read what you write will quickly observe if they’re hearing from a
stuffed shirt or a breathing human, and will respond with open delight if it’s the latter, and that
is intensely satisfying. Believe me.”
Reference: Downloaded from Managerial Econ. Blog post titled “Alfred Kahn on clear writing”
by Luke Froeb. December 29, 2010. https://managerialecon.blogspot.com