Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

From Here to Obscurity

THE NO-GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY:

Obstacles to clear communication

The long, long trail a-winding: Circumlocution

An utterly unique added extra: Tautology

Witter + Waffle = Gobbledegook

Smart talk, but tiresome: Jargon

Saying it nicely: Euphemism

A word to the wise about Clichés

CLARITY BEGINS AT HOME:

How to improve your powers of expression

Circumambulate the non-representational: Avoid the abstract

Overloading can sink your sentence

Avoiding the minefield of muddle

Measuring the murk with the FOG Index

MAKING WORDS WORK FOR YOU:

A refresher course in Grammar and Punctuation

Punctuation needn’t be a pain: Stops, commas and other marks

The building blocks of good writing: Grammar without grief

Writing elegant, expressive English: The elements of style

Finding out: a word about dictionaries

HOW TO WRITE A BETTER LETTER:

Say what you mean; get what you want

Communicate better with a well-written letter

Relationships by post: Strictly personal

Protecting your interests: Complaining with effect

Staying alive: Employer and employee

Selling yourself: Creating a persuasive CV

Getting it and keeping it: Money matters

Writing in the new millennium: Word processing and E-mail

Index

Keep Reading

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

Having picked up this book the odds are that you are a writer. Perhaps not a journalist or a novelist, but a writer nevertheless: of letters, memos, reports or even an occasional note to the milkman. You may keep a daily diary, or limit your output to greetings on Christmas cards once a year.

There is also a good chance that you suddenly have a need to write – a job application perhaps, a ticking off to the council, a heartfelt letter of condolence to a friend. Mind and pen poised, it slowly dawns on you that the gap between what you want to say and what hesitantly appears on the paper in front of you is as wide as an ocean.

Can you learn how to improve your writing skills? Can the art of good writing be taught? Despite some opinions to the contrary, the answer is yes. Writing is a highly personal accomplishment and while some will spectacularly develop native talents others will always find it a frustrating slog. But everyone is capable of enhancing their powers of written communication simply by learning and practicing the basic principles of clear, concise and coherent writing: planning, preparation and revision. Further improvement comes from observing examples of good and also bad writing, and your confidence as a writer will grow as you begin to appreciate that the English language is not a fearsome book of rules but an unrivalled communications tool that you can learn to use with the familiar ease of a knife and fork.

It is important at the outset that you are aware of the difference between speech and writing. You may think, ‘If only I could write as easily as I speak!’ Unfortunately it’s a wish that’s rarely granted. When we talk to someone face to face (or even over the phone) we can instantly correct mistakes and clarify misunderstandings, provide subtle nuances with a smile, a laugh or a shrug, add emphasis with a frown or tone of voice. But when we write something, we have just one shot to hit the bullseye so that whoever reads it understands it – precisely. Two millennia ago the Roman orator Cicero offered a pretty good tip: the point of writing is not just to be understood, but to make it impossible to be misunderstood.

The ability to write well is a valuable, life-enriching asset and Collins Good Writing Skills will help you towards this goal. Much of what you will read is the lifetime word wisdom of a veteran national newspaper sub-editor. Sub-editors are a newspaper’s front-line defence against inaccurate, ungrammatical, long-winded, repetitious and pompous writing – and thus the reader’s best friends. A group of Daily Telegraph sub-editors decided that a new shorter 60-word police caution was still too ponderous and proceeded to distil the same meaning into 37 words. Here is the 60-word version, devised by a Scotland Yard committee:

You do not have to say anything. But if you do not now mention something which you later use in your defence, the court may decide that your failure to mention it now strengthens the case against you. A record will be made of anything you say and it may be given in evidence if you are brought to trial.

And here is the revised, sub-edited version, clearer and shorter:

You need say nothing, but if you later use in your defence something withheld now, the court could hold this against you. A record of what you say might be used in evidence if you are tried.

No long or obtuse words, no flowery phrases – just crystal-clear prose that makes few demands on a reader’s time, holds the reader’s interest throughout and simply can’t be misunderstood. That is the kind of model this book recommends, although you will also be amused and appalled by dozens of other masterpieces of a vastly different kind – masterpieces of drivel and obscurity to drive home the sort of writing to avoid.

Into the jungle, with machete and pen

But first, let us be brave. We are about to hack our way through a jungle. The dense, tangled world of obscure and impenetrable language. Officialese. Circumlocution. Tautology. Gobbledegook. Jargon. Verbosity, pomposity and cliché. All the ugly growths that prevent us from understanding a piece of writing.

Perhaps the obstacle is a notice from our bank, the district council, the water, gas or electricity supply company, which for all we know might have a serious effect on our future. Or it may be a newspapaper or magazine article that makes us stop in mid-sentence to realise that we do not understand its meaning. Or perhaps it’s an advertisement for a job we might fancy . . . if only we knew what the wording meant.

This book, however, is not intended to help the baffled reader to fight through the thickets of spiky legalisms, prickly abstractions and tangled verbosity. Rather it is a guide to help you, the writer of the letter, memo, report or CV, to make sure your writing is clear of such obstacles to understanding.

Don’t be a sloppy copycat!

In business and bureaucracies, it is fatally easy to fall in with the writing habits of those around you: sloppy, vague and clumsy.

Yet most of us realise that a letter, memo or report from someone who knows how to write clearly and with precision is obviously more welcome, and read more keenly, than a dreary wodge of waffle and wittering.

Your own writing will be most effective when it is clear and direct. People who write in a straighforward way always shine out against the dim grey mass of Sloppies.

To be a good writer you have to write tighter

The usual advice on clear expression is: ‘Write as you speak’. But we have already concluded that unless you have special gifts or professional skills, this is virtually impossible. Perhaps the advice should be amended to: ‘Write as you speak – say what you mean, but make it tighter’.

One simple way to accomplish this is always to think economically. Less is often more. Some of the greatest thoughts and concepts in history have been expressed in surprisingly few words. The Ten Commandments are expressed in just 130 words; the Sermon on the Mount in 320, Kipling’s poem ‘If’ is less than 300 words long and the American Declaration of Independence was made in 485 words.

On the other hand a recent EEC internal memo on aubergine production and marketing issued in Brussels hit a word count of 9,800! Of all these, which would you think is the most readable?

The same applies to words: shorter is better. Many famous writers of the past were experts at saying what they meant in very few words, and simple, often one-syllable words at that. Milton and Shakespeare were deft users of simple words but for beauty achieved through sheer simplicity it is hard to beat Robert Herrick’s The Daffodils:

We have short time to stay, as you,

We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you, or any thing.

We die,

As your hours do, and dry

Away,

Like to the summer’s rain;

Or as the pearls of morning’s dew

Ne’er to be found again.

With the exception of just a few words (decay, away, summer’s, etc) every word of this stanza is of a single syllable, perhaps symbolic of the brevity of life, and it is a model that every writer could aspire to.

Of course economy of expression isn’t everything and it can be misleading to argue the toss between long and short words, concrete or abstract nouns, active or passive voices. What is important is selecting the right word, and putting it in the right place for the right reason.

Before you begin to write . . . THINK!

Another English writer, William Cobbett, declared that ‘He who writes badly thinks badly’. You could usefully reverse this. A minute’s thought before a minute’s writing is advice worth thinking about, perhaps on the following lines:

 What do I want to say?

 Am I making just one main point, or several?

 If several, what’s the order of importance?

You may find it worthwhile to jot down your points before starting your letter, or report, or story. Once you’ve organised your material you can then concentrate on expressing it in writing, getting the right words in the right places.

When you’ve completed your writing – and this is the vital bit – read it through and decide, as critically as you dare, whether you’ve got it right. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Is the meaning clear? Is it expressed directly? Is it interesting to read? How would I feel after reading it? If the answers to any of the first three questions is ‘no’ or even ‘well . . . ’ you should try to face up to rewriting it. Nobody pretends that rewriting isn’t an unwelcome task but the reward is worth it – the satisfaction of having improved upon your first effort. Of course, if you use a word processor the job of rewriting (often sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph) is easier.

Thinking before writing will help you avoid clangers like this paragraph from a bank’s letter to a customer:

We will not charge the £19 and £23 fee if your account had an average cleared credit balance of at least £500 during the period we were charging for. If you only pay a charge as a result of a charge you paid in the previous charging period, we will refund this second charge if you ask.

Pardon? Oddly enough, this piece of nonsense bore the Crystal Mark, the seal of clarity approved by the Plain English Campaign, which brings us to the two key organisations in Britain devoted to the elimination of drivel and gobbledegook and the encouragement of clear language and plain English.

The Golden Bull vs the Golden Rhubarb

The self-appointed guardian angel of our national tongue is Chrissie Maher, OBE, founder of the Plain English Campaign. Remarkably, Ms Maher, who was brought up by a widowed mother in a poor household in wartime Liverpool, did not learn to read or write until she was in her teens. The disability dogged her until, during a job interview with an insurance company, she admitted she was illiterate. Instead of rejection she was told she could have the job, provided she studied at night school; three years later she could read, write and count. In her adult life she went on to a degree course in sociology.

A deprived background made Chrissie Maher keenly aware of how uneducated people were fobbed off by officialese they couldn’t understand, and how they were often coerced into signing important documents and forms, with little idea about what the small print meant. When she came across a case in which an old lady died of hypothermia because she couldn’t understand the application form for a home heating grant, she decided to do something about it.

Maher launched the Plain English Campaign in 1979: since then, with its relentless exposure of bureaucratic pomp and absurdity, it has become both feared and admired. It prompted a government review which resulted in some 36,000 official forms being scrapped and another 60,000 rewritten to make them more easily understood. It is frequently hired by organisations to vet their forms and sales literature and issues a ‘Crystal Mark’ to commercial prose which passes its standards of clarity. To transgressors of simple English however, it issues its annual Golden Bull awards. Winners of this trophy – appropriately a pound of tripe – include the Department of Agriculture which defined cows, pigs and sheep as ‘grain-consuming animal units’, a car sales firm which described a used car as a ‘pre-enjoyed vehicle’, and the National Health Service for defining a bed as:

A device or arrangement that may be used to permit a patient to lie down when the need to do so is a consequence of the patient’s condition rather than a need for active intervention such as examination, diagnostic intervention, manipulative treatment, obstetric delivery or transport.

The more recent Plain Language Commission has identical objectives and issues its own annual awards – the Golden and Silver Rhubarb trophies for the year’s most baffling documents.

Both organisations waged a war of blunt words in 1995 when the Commission awarded NatWest Bank a silver trophy for what it called an example of the year’s worst gobbledegook in a booklet about mortgage rates, part of which read:

Depending upon the type of mortgage you have, repaying early can have certain financial consequencies [sic], for instance, early repayment of a mortgage and surrender of an endowment policy, may leave you with a small surrendering sum, which may not reflect the actual monies invested. Alternatively, cancellation of a life policy without considering future needs may ultimately mean increased premiums for the same amount of life cover in the future.

To the embarrassment of the Plain English Campaign, NatWest Bank had just been nominated for its ‘Crystal Clear Bank of Europe’ award for the ‘ease with which its literature could be understood’!

You may wonder, when the experts in concise, coherent communication disagree so profoundly, whether you will ever see the clear light of day through the other side of the jungle. But take heart and read on and you will learn how even the most dense thicket of verbiage can be trimmed and tamed.

From Here To Obscurity

If language can be like a jungle sometimes, officialese is the minefield laid among the thorny thickets and clinging creepers. And despite the successes of the Plain English teams, officials in government, local councils and other bureaucratic organisations still too often try to lure us into their baffling word mazes.

The language of officialdom can obliterate all meaning. Feel the undergrowth closing in as you try to fight your way out of this trap dug by the former Department of Health and Social Services . . .

The Case of the Crippled Sentence

A person shall be treated as suffering from physical disablement such that he is either unable to walk or virtually unable to do so if he is not unable or virtually unable to walk with a prosthesis or an artificial aid which he habitually wears or uses or if he would not be unable or virtually unable to walk if he habitually wore or used a prosthesis or an artificial aid which is suitable in his case.

This would-be ‘sentence’ first of all reflects the legalistic terror of official punctuation: the full stop or comma which, if misplaced, might lead the Department all the way to a House of Lords appeal. And, second, it ignores or offends half the population – women – by exclusively using the masculine pronouns he and his.

So let us take our machete to the undergrowth, bring in the mine detectors and wire-cutters, and try to discover what, if anything, this passage struggles to convey. A step at a time, too, for fear of booby traps.

A person shall be treated as suffering from physical disablement . . . treated?

This is not intended as medical advice, but since the context is medical the reader may, however briefly, be confused. Lift out treated and replace with considered. Throw treated into the shrubbery.

Suffering from physical disablement. Why not simply physically disabled? And while we are at it, we don’t need as after considered. Toss that into the shrubbery too.

So far, in our cleaned-up version, we have ‘A person shall be considered physically disabled’ – and we don’t seem to have lost any of the intended meaning.

Such that he is either unable to walk or virtually unable to do so. Wrench away the clumsy such that he is and replace it with which makes him (we’ll come to the offending pronouns later). Next, we cut out either, because we don’t need it.

We now have which makes him unable to walk, or virtually unable to do so. This can be more tightly expressed as which makes him, unable, or virtually unable, to walk.

Peering into the darkening thicket we next tackle if he is not unable or virtually unable to walk with a prosthesis or an artificial aid which he habitually wears or uses . . . Stop! The rest is just the gibbering of jungle monkeys. This seems to mean that the person can get around, but only with the help of a prosthesis or other artificial aid. The word even, before if he is not, would have helped. But we really do not need this tangled heap of words at all.

The entire ‘sentence’, if it means anything, must surely mean this:

A person is regarded as physically disabled if he or she always needs an artificial aid to walk.

We can of course replace the masculine and feminine pronouns with that person:

A person is regarded as physically disabled if that person always needs an artificial aid to walk.

As you can see, the meaning remains clear. But what about the prosthesis, you may ask. Well, there are thousands of people with prostheses in the form of replacement hips and knees and other artificial body parts who are bounding about without the least need of any artificial aids – wheelchairs, zimmers and walking sticks – so the amended versions are perfectly valid.

The Case of the Crippled Sentence is a prime example of the need to think ‘What do I want to say?’ And then to say it, the simple way.

A serious case of effluxion

Here’s a verbal smokescreen from a London borough council:

And take further notice that under the provisions of Section 47(2) of the said Housing Act 1974 in relation to any land consisting of or including Housing Accommodation in a Housing Action Area a landlord must not less than four weeks before the expiry by effluxion of time of any tenancy which expires without the service of any Notice to Quit, notify the council in writing that the tenancy is about to expire in accordance with the said Schedule 4 . . .

This is a model of mixed officialese and legalese: you can almost see the glint of watch-and-chain on the Town Clerk’s egg-stained black waistcoat. How do we turn it into something like English, without losing any legal force the passage might be required to have?

For a start, there appears to be no need for And take further notice. If the reader is not going to take notice, there seems little point in the writer’s finishing this masterwork. Next: under the provisions of Section 47(2) of the said Housing Act 1974 – the words the provisions of are redundant. Let’s lose them. The same goes for said.

And next: in relation to any land consisting of or including. The lawyers can keep their consisting of or including, just in case they are struggling to cover, say, a backyard or front garden where someone lives in a caravan. But in relation to can be shortened to concerning. We have now brought concerning clumsily close to consisting, so let us replace consisting of with that consists of. The word Accommodation after Housing is not needed. And once Housing is left standing by itself, the capital H becomes even more obviously unnecessary.

Plodding on: a landlord must not less than four weeks before the expiry by effluxion of time . . . Quickly to the dictionary – to seek out the meaning of this excitingly unfamiliar word, effluxion. We find:

Efflux, n. Flowing out (of liquid, air, gas; also fig.) That which flows out. Hence effluxion, n. See effluence, n.

From its meaning the word certainly suits the prose style, if nothing else. But we can do without effluxion. And we can also do without expiry.

Now, what is the rest of the message? It seems that in a Housing Action Area, if a landlord knows that a tenancy is running out and no notice to quit is needed, he must warn the council, in writing, at least four weeks before that tenancy is due to end. So let’s tack that information on to our earlier repair:

Under Section 47(2) of the Housing Act 1974, concerning any land that consists of or includes housing in a Housing Action Area, if a landlord knows that a tenancy is due to end without need of a notice to quit, he or she must tell the council, in writing, at least four weeks before the tenancy runs out.

The passage is no nail-biter and is still scarcely slick or smooth. But it is quite readable and clear and certainly less forbidding than the original mess.

How axiomatic is your bus shelter?

Here’s a letter from the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive:

I refer to your recent letter in which you submit a request for the provision of a bus passenger shelter in Ligett Lane at the inward stopping place for Service 31 adjacent to Gledhow Primary School. The stated requirement for a shelter at this location has been noted, but as you may be aware shelter erection at all locations within West Yorkshire has been constrained in recent times as a result of instructions issued by the West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council in the light of the Government’s cuts in public expenditure and, although it seems likely that the Capital Budget for shelter provision will be enhanced in the forthcoming Financial Year, it is axiomatic that residual requests in respect of prospective shelter sites identified as having priority, notably those named in earlier programmes of shelter erection will take precedence in any future shelter programme.

Let us briefly mop our brows and try to fathom what the poor, befuddled author intended to say, before we set about helping him say it in plain English.

At a guess, the passage could be summed up like this:

I refer to your request for a bus shelter in Ligett Lane . . . Unfortunately, because of Government spending cuts, West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council has in turn ordered a curb on bus-shelter building. Although there may be more money for such work in our next financial year, shelters already on the waiting list will obviously be built first.

This seems simple enough, so where did the author go wrong? Let us lay his Frankenstein’s monster on the dissecting slab:

I refer to your recent letter in which you submit a request for the provision of a bus passenger shelter in Ligett Lane . . . If the writer identifies the subject clearly enough, there is no need to remind his correspondent of all the details. The correspondent wants a straightforward Yes, No, or even Maybe – with an explanation, if the answer is No or Maybe.

The stated requirement for a shelter at this location has been noted . . . Of course it has. Otherwise the official would not be writing at all.

but as you may be aware . . . This is word-wasting. It doesn’t matter if the correspondent is aware or not. The official’s job is to make sure the correspondent knows the facts now.

shelter erection at all locations within West Yorkshire has been constrained in recent times . . . No purpose is served by at all locations. There is no reason to use within rather than in, no matter how widely this particular verbal fungus has spread.

constrained should be replaced by the easier-to-understand restricted; and in recent times is a redundancy. So is as a result of instructions issued by.

West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council is rendered with a rare and forceful clarity, with not a syllable wasted. But then we slide back . . . in the light of the Government’s cuts in public expenditure . . . The only meaning of in the light of, here, is because of. Your reader, rightly or not, will still blame the Government for the lack of a bus shelter, whether you use the clear or the foggy expression. So why head into the fog? (See Fog Index, page 75)

and, although it seems likely that the Capital Budget for shelter provision will be enhanced in the forthcoming Financial Year . . . The reader is less interested in what the bus shelter fund is called than what it will do for him, and when. So ditch the Capital Budget. And since a shelter is a shelter, provision is yet another unneeded word.

enhanced, in this context, means increased; there seems to be no reason to evade the more commonly-used word.

it is axiomatic that . . . Your dictionary will tell you that an axiom is a self-evident statement, a universally accepted principle established by experience; axiomatic here is presumably meant to convey self-evidently true. If something is that obvious, the official is wasting paper and his correspondent’s time in saying it.

residual requests in respect of prospective shelter sites identified as having priority, notably those named in earlier programmes of shelter erection . . . Thrusting the dissecting knife into the middle of this lot, we are left with shelter requests not met by earlier building programmes to which we add will take precedence in any future shelter programme. There’s not a lot to argue about here, for once – apart, perhaps, from the repetition of shelter programme.

The deskbound, wordbound Frankenstein who created our monster may be saddened, even angry, at the way we have slimmed down his offspring. But at least he – and more importantly, his correspondent – can now discover what he really meant to say.

Missives such as our bus shelter letter don’t have to be long to lose their way. Here’s a paragraph from an insurance policy, hunted down by the Plain English Campaign:

The due observance and fulfillment of the terms so far as they relate to anything to be done or complied with by the Insured and the truth of the statements and answers in the Proposal shall be conditions precendent to any liability of the Company to make any payment under this Policy.

Follow? Perhaps after five minute’s concentration you might feel that you have fully understood it. The Campaign’s recommended version would no doubt leave the insurance company gasping for words:

We will only make a payment under this policy if:

 you have kept to the terms of the policy; and

 the statements and answers in your Proposal are true.

Almost all officialese can be analysed, dissected and rendered into clear and readily understood English but some is so dense as to resist the sharpest and most probing of scalpel blades. Here’s an example, quoted by the Daily Telegraph, that consigns itself forever in the limbo of lost understanding:

ANY lump sum paid in accordance with Provision 7 of the Second Schedule shall be an amount equal to the Basic Nominal Fund that would be applied to calculate the Alternative Annuity under Provision 5 or Provision 12 of the Second Schedule on the assumption that the Annuitant had elected under Provision 4 of the Second Schedule that the date of his death was the Alternative Vesting Date or if greater an amount equal to the premiums received by the Society.

This is the sort of verbal hurdle that is still likely to confront average citizens at any time. Are we really expected to understand this guff? Or are we expected to hire a specialist or consultant to help us? Yet none of the sorry examples quoted here need have happened, if only the writers had held this conversation with themselves:

Q and A can save the day

Q | What’s it all about?
A | It’s about when somebody is classed as disabled/the special duty of a landlord in a Housing Action Area/someone wanting a bus shelter built.
Q | What do we want to say?
A | We want to say that someone who can’t walk unaided is officially disabled; that a Housing Action Area landlord has to warn the council when there’s about to be a tenancy available; that we can’t afford the requested bus shelter just now.
Q | Very well. So why don’t we just SAY it!

There is no excuse for obscurity. The English language, with its lexicon of nearly half a million words, is there to help any writer express any thought that comes into his or her head – even the virtually inexpressible. If we can’t manage this, we should give up and leave it to others. Or admit our faults and learn how to do better.

The No-Good, the Bad and the Ugly: the Obstacles to Clear Communication

The long, long trail a-winding: Circumlocution

Bournemouth was on Monday night thrown into a state of most unusual gloom and sorrow by the sad news that the Rev A M Bennett – who for the last 34 years has had charge of St Peter’s Church and parish, and who has exercised so wonderful an influence in the district – had breathed his last, and that the voice which only about a week previously had been listened to by a huge congregation at St Peter’s was now hushed in the stillness of death . . .

Lymington Chronicle, January 22, 1880

When a writer or speaker fills you with the urge to shout ‘Get on with it!’, he or she is probably committing the sin of circumlocution – roundabout speech or writing, or using a lot of words when a few will do. In most of today’s newspapers the prose above would be a collector’s item.

Politicians, of course, are notable circumlocutionists; perhaps it’s an instinct to confuse, to prevent them from being pinned down. A few years ago a British political leader went on television to explain his attitude to the introduction of a single currency for all countries in the European Community.

Before you continue reading, you should probably find a comfortable seat . . .

No, I would not be signing up: I would have been making, and would be making now, a very strong case for real economic convergence, not the very limited version which the Conservatives are offering, so we understand, of convergence mainly of inflation rates, important though that is, but of convergence across a range of indicators – base rates, deficits and, of course, unemployemt – together with a number of indexes of what the real performance of economics are . . .

(Perhaps a brief tea-break would be in order here.)

. . . the reason I do that and the reason why that is an argument that must be won before there is any significant achievement of union is not only a British reason, although it is very important to us, it is a European Community reason: if we were to move towards an accomplished form of union over a very rapid timetable without this convergence taking place it would result in a two-speed Europe, even to a greater extent than now – fast and slow, rich and poor – and the fragmentation of the Community, which is the very opposite of what those people who most articulate the view in favour of integration and union really want; when I put that argument to my colleagues in, for instance, the Federation of Socialist Parties, many of whom form the governments in the EC, there is a real understanding and agreement with that point of view . . .

So what, precisely, might the gentleman have been hoping to convey? Probably this:

I do not want a single European currency until various other factors affecting the question have been dealt with. The factors are these . . .

A former US President, George Bush, was famous for his bemusing circumlocution, as in this speech defending his accomplishments:

I see no media mention of it, but we entered in – you asked what time it is and I’m telling you how to build a watch here – but we had Boris Yeltsin in here the other day, and I think of my times campaigning in Iowa, years ago, and how there was a – I single out Iowa, it’s kind of an international state in a sense and has a great interest in all these things – and we had Yeltsin standing here in the Rose Garden, and we entered into a deal to eliminate the biggest and most threatening ballistic missiles . . . and it was almost, ‘Ho-hum, what have you done for me recently?’

Circumlocution (also called periphrasis) typically employs long words, often incorrectly or inappropriately, and probably derives from a need to sound learned (a policeman referring to a bomb as an explosive device) or a desire not to offend (asking, for example, ‘I wonder if you would mind awfully moving to one side’ instead of the more direct ‘Get out of my way!’. Some forms of circumlocution may be excusable, but most are due to unthinking use of jargon and clichés in place of more precise (and usually briefer) expressions. Typical is the use of with the exception of for except; with reference to/regard to/respect to for about; for the very good reason that for because, and so on.

To avoid being accused of circumlocution, stick to the point! If you intend to drive from London to Manchester in the most direct way possible you’d hardly wander off every motoway exit and then dither about along country lanes. The same principle applies to effective communication.

It also pays to be aware of persistent offenders – circumlocutory phrases many of us are inclined to utter when the exact, simple word we want fails to turn up. Here’s a short list.

The Circumlocutionist’s Lexicon

apart from the fact that – but, except

as a consequence of – because of

as yet – yet

at the time of writing – now/at present

at this moment/point in time – now/at present

avail ourselves of the privilege – accept

be of the opinion that – think, believe

because of the fact that – because

beg to differ – disagree

by means of – by

by virtue of the fact that – because

consequent upon – because of

consonant with – agreeing/matching

could hardly be less propitious – is bad/unfortunate/unpromising

due to the fact that – because

during such time as – while

during the course of – during

except for the fact that – except/but

few in number – few

for the reason that/for the very good reason that – because

give up on (it) – give up

go in to bat for – defend/help/represent

in accordance with – under

in addition to which – besides

in a majority of cases – usually

in all probability – probably

in anticipation of – expecting

inasmuch as – since

in association with – with

in close proximity to – near

in connection with – about

in consequence of – because of

in contradistinction to – compared to/compared with

in excess of – over/more than

in isolation – alone

in less than no time – soon/quickly

in many cases/instances – often

in more than one instance – more than once

in order to – to

in respect of – about/concerning

in spite of the fact that – although/even though

in the absence of – without

in the amount of – for

in the event that – if

in the light of the fact that – because

in the near future – soon

in the neighbourhood of/in the vicinity of – near/about

in the recent past – recently

in view of/in view of the fact that – because

irrespective of the fact that – although

large in size/stature – large/big

make a recommendation that – recommend that

nothing if not – very

notwithstanding the fact that – even if

of a delicate nature/character – delicate

of a high order – high/great/considerable

of the opinion that – think/believe

on account of the fact that – because

on a temporary basis – temporary/temporarily

on the grounds that – because

on the part of – by

owing to the fact that – because

pink/purple/puce, etc in colour – pink/purple/puce, etc

prior to – before

provide a contribution to – contribute to/help

regardless of the fact that – although

subsequent to – after

there can be little doubt that – no doubt, clearly

there is a possibility that – possibly/perhaps

to the best of my knowledge and belief – as far as I know/I believe

until such time as – until

with a view to – to

with reference to – about

with regard to – about

with respect to – about/concerning

with the exception of – except

People prone to pompous long-windedness can be gently reminded of their sins by quoting to them a well-known nursery rhyme rewritten in circumlocutory style:

Observe repeatedly the precipitate progress of a trio of sightless rodents: together they coursed apace on the heels of the agriculturalist’s consort, who summarily disjoined their caudal appendages with a cutler’s handiwork. One had never witnessed such mirth in one’s existence as the incident involving those hemeralopic and nyctalopic mammals.

The rhyme is, of course, Three Blind Mice.

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