Reader and Renaissance man Bob Parker brought my attention to Alfred Kahn, economist and former head of the Civil Aeronautics Board, who was perhaps best known for a memo he circulated in 1977 containing guidelines for the avoidance of “gobbledygook” in corporate speech. The whole thing is a gem, well worth the five minutes it will take you to read it. Here are a few of my favorite lines:
“If you can’t explain what you’re doing in plain English, you’re probably doing something wrong.”
“Try reading some of the language you use aloud, and ask yourself how your friends would be likely to react.”
On the passive voice: “Typically, its purpose is to conceal information: one is less likely to be jailed if one says ‘he was hit by a stone’ than ‘I hit him with a stone.’”
“I have heard it said that style is not substance, but without style what is substance?”
What indeed. The memo garnered Kahn a marriage proposal (he was already married) and newspaper editorials suggesting he be elected president and/or get the Nobel Prize. He died late last year, so perhaps it’s time to nominate him for sainthood.
Yaaaaay! (I know this contradicts
my earlier post opposing the use of exclamation points but I couldn’t resist the impulse to gild the lily and besides…it’s Sunday and I’m feeling a bit lazy.)
If one is avoiding the passive, shouldn’t “one is less likely to be jailed if one says…” be “someone is less likely to jail you if you say…”?
I write this not only to be snarky (though that’s the part I enjoy most) but also because too many people reflexively treat the passive as “bad.” The passive can be used (I mean “one can use the passive”) to conceal information, but it is often used (I mean “writers often use it”) when what would be the subject of an active-voice sentence is not the most important part of the proposition. Linguists refer to this use of the passive as “focusing” or “topicalization.”
Can’t disagree (especially when a post is so well written). There are several valid uses for the passive voice–I feel a column coming on–but its rampant misuse and overuse still need to be addressed.
Some of the memo is still valid; some isn’t. For example, the objection to hopefully as a sentence adverb is scarcely justifiable nowadays. On style, Katherine Anne Porter wrote insightfully: “You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.” It’s a good corrective to the tendency to overbake one’s writing.
Excellent points. My favorite part of the memo was the exhortation to write humanely–to consider the condition of the audience.
Yes, that’s good advice regardless of the era and context.