Style Guide for Your
Papers in Geog 2002
From the Economist
Magazine
I N T R O
D U C T I O N.
Clarity of writing usually follows clarity
of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible.
Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the
English Language", 1946):
M E T A P H O R S.
"A newly invented metaphor assists
thought by evoking a visual image," said Orwell, "while on the other
hand a metaphor which is technically
‘dead’ (eg, iron resolution) has in
effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without
loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of wornout metaphors which are merely used because they save
people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves."
Every issue of The Economist contains scores
of metaphors: trails of crushed rivals, billing and cooing politicians,
projects falling at the first hurdle, track records on inflation, tabloid
reporters lapping up stories, reports leaving the door ajar, irresistible
forces about to meet immovable objects, roadblocks in the path of reform,
investors crying foul, doors slammed shut in China, blind eyes turned in
Taiwan, investors jumping the gun, heat off in America, the reins of power in
Japan, bargaining chips in South Africa, U-turns everywhere, honeymoons (always
at an end), foot-dragging, run-ups, counterweights, shadows cast, bureaucratic
barriers, grass-roots organisations, mainstream
conservatives, young Turks, leading wets, crash-courses, grinding poverty,
flabby banks getting into shape, politicians turning deaf ears, binges of brand
acquisitions and so on. Some of these are tired, and will therefore tire the
reader. Most are so exhausted that they may be considered dead, and are
therefore permissible. But use all metaphors, dead or alive, sparingly,
otherwise you will make trouble for yourself.
An issue of The Economist chosen at random
had a package cutting the budget deficit, the administration loth to sign on to higher targets, liberals accused of
playing politics on the court (Supreme, not tennis), only to find in the next
sentence that the boot was on the other foot, the lure of eastern Germany as a
springboard to the struggling
Two pages on, the reader had to go down to
the seas again when a flotilla of mutual and quoted life-assurance outfits were
confident of surviving turbulent waters. The galleons were afloat, but the
medium-sized and smaller mutuals quickly turned into
fodder for domestic and foreign predators. Further on, banks going to the altar
in the expectation of a tax-free dowry saw it become a sweetener in the next
sentence and the bill that delivered it transformed into a panacea. Those who
wanted to learn about Japanese equity financing were told of a stock
Others are even more extravagant in their
figures of speech. These two sentences were used as an opening paragraph to
arrest the attention of the readers of A.N.Other
newspaper:
Another publication reported:
The basic question for the Bush campaign, as
the fervor from the Republican convention in
Mr Clinton has had to pull the plug on a plan that had
been tarred as a bail-out for an incompetent regime and the Wall Street fat
cats who invested in it. And poor Reuters had to report that:
A BBC statement said today: "This is an
off-the-wall programme with a track record of
cutting-edge humour, but on this occasion we appear
to have overstepped the
So did Léon Dion, cited as "an important constitutional
expert" by another publication:
In his opinion, give the Anglophones an inch
and they will demand a mile. "The signs issue is just the Trojan
horse," he says. "It is the tip of the iceberg. Once the dam is open
you won't be able to close it."
S H O R T W O R D S.
Use them. They are often Anglo-Saxon rather
than Latin in origin. They are easy to spell and easy to understand. Thus
prefer about to approximately, after to following, let to permit, but to however,
use to utilise, make tomanufacture,
plant to facility, take part to participate, set up to establish, enough to
sufficient, show to demonstrate and so on.
Underdeveloped countries are often better
described as poor. Substantive often means real or big. "Short words are
best and the old words when short are best of all." (Winston Churchill)
U N N E C E
S S A R Y W O R D S.
Some words add nothing but length to your
prose. Use adjectives to make your meaning more precise and be cautious of
those you find yourself using to make it more emphatic. The word very is a case
in point. If it occurs in a sentence you have written, try leaving it out and
see whether the meaning is changed. The omens were good may have more force
than The omens were very good.
Avoid strike action (strike will do),
cutbacks (cuts), track record (record), wilderness area (usually either a
wilderness or a wild area), large-scale (big), weather conditions (weather),
etc.
Shoot off, or rather shoot, as many
prepositions after verbs as possible. Thus people can meet rather than meet
with; companies can be bought and sold rather than bought up and sold off;
budgets can be cut rather than cut back; plots can be hatched but not hatched
up; organisations should be headed by rather than
headed up by chairmen, just as
This advice you are given free, or for
nothing, but not for free.
Certain words are often redundant. The
leader of the so-called Front for a Free Freedonia is
the leader of the Front for a Free Freedonia. A top
politician or top priority is usually just a politician or a priority, and a
major speech usually just a speech. A safe haven is a haven. Most probably and
most especially are probably and especially. The fact that can often be
shortened to That (That I did not do so was a
self-indulgence). Loans to the industrial and agricultural sectors are just
loans to industry and farming.
Community is another word often best cut
out. Not only is it usually unnecessary, it purports to convey a sense of
togetherness that may well not exist. The black community means blacks, the
business community means businessmen, the homosexual community means
homosexuals, the intelligence community means spies, the international
community, if it means anything, means other countries, aid agencies or, just
occasionally, the family of nations.
Use words with care. A heart condition is
usually a bad heart. Positive thoughts (held by long-suffering creditors,
according to The Economist) presumably means optimism, just as a negative
report (eg, from the Department of Health on the
side-effects of drugs) is probably a critical report. Industrial action is
usually industrial inaction, industrial disruption or a strike. A substantially
finished bridge is an unfinished bridge. Someone with high name-recognition is
well known. Something with reliability problems probably does not work. If
yours is a live audience, what would a dead one be like?
In general, be concise. Try to be economical
in your account or argument ("The best way to be boring is to leave
nothing out"—Voltaire). Similarly, try to be economical with words.
"As a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have
written; you have no idea what vigour it will give to
your style." (Sydney Smith)
A C T I V E, N O T P A
S S I V E.
Be direct. A hit B describes the event more
concisely than B was hit by A.
J A R G O N.
Avoid it. You may have to think harder if
you are not to use jargon, but you can still be precise. Technical terms should
be used in their proper context; do not use them out of it. In many instances
simple words can do the job of exponential (try fast), interface (frontier or
border) and so on. If you find yourself tempted to write about affirmative
action or corporate governance, you will have to explain what it is; with luck,
you will then not have to use the actual expression.
Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that
tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (Working in an empowering
environment, a topic discussed at a recent Economist conference) or to obscure
the truth (We shall not launch the ground offensive until we have attrited the Republican Guard to the point when they no
longer have an effective offensive capacity—the Pentagon's way of saying
that the allies would not fight on the ground until they had killed so many
Iraqis that the others would not attack). What was meant by the Israeli defence ministry when it issued the following press release
remains unclear: The United States and
Try not to use foreign words and phrases
unless there is no English alternative, which is unusual (so a year or per
year, not per annum; a person or per person, not per capita; beyond one's
authority, not ultra vires; and so on).
T O N E.
The reader is primarily interested in what
you have to say. By the way in which you say it you may encourage him either to
read on or to stop reading. If you want him to read on:
Do not be stuffy. "To write a genuine,
familiar or truly English style", said Hazlitt, "is to write
as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command or
choice of words or who could discourse with ease, force and perspicuity setting
aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes."
In "How to Be a Better Reporter",
Arthur Brisbane put it like this: "Avoid fancy writing. The most powerful
words are the simplest. ‘To be or not to be, that is the question,’
‘In the beginning was the word,’ ‘We are such stuff as dreams
are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep,’ ‘Out,
out, brief candle,’ ‘The rest is silence.’ Nothing fancy in
those quotations. A natural style is the only style."
Use the language of everyday speech, not
that of spokesmen, lawyers or bureaucrats (so prefer let to permit, people to
persons, buy to purchase, colleague to peer, way out to exit, present to gift,
rich to wealthy, break to violate). It is sometimes useful to talk of
human-rights abuses but often the sentence can be rephrased more pithily and
more accurately. The army is accused of committing numerous human-rights abuses
probably means The army is accused of torture and
murder.
Avoid, where possible, euphemisms and
circumlocutions promoted by interest-groups. In most contexts the
hearing-impaired are simply deaf. It is no disrespect to the disabled sometimes
to describe them as crippled. Female teenagers are girls, not women. The
underprivileged may be disadvantaged, but are more likely just poor.
And man sometimes includes women, just as he
sometimes makes do for she as well. It is often possible
to phrase sentences so that they neither give offence to women nor become
hideously complicated. Using the plural can be a helpful device. Thus Instruct
the reader without lecturing him is better put as Instruct readers without
lecturing them. But some sentences resist this treatment: Find a good teacher
and take his advice is not easily rendered gender-neutral. Avoid, above all,
the sort of scrambled syntax that the Commission for Racial Equality has to
adopt because it cannot bring itself to use a singular pronoun: We can't afford
to squander anyone's talents, whatever colour their
skin is. Avoid also chairpersons (chairwoman is permissible), businesspeople,
humankind and the person in the street—ugly expressions all. And, so long
as you are not insensitive in other ways, few women will be offended if you
restrain yourself from putting or she after every he.
He or she which hath no stomach to this
fight,
Let him or her depart; his or her passport
shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his or her
purse:
We would not die in that person's company
That fears his or her fellowship to die with
us.
Be sparing with quotes. Direct quotes should
be used when either the speaker or what he said is surprising, or when the
words he used are particularly pithy or graphic. Otherwise you can probably
paraphrase him more concisely. The most pointless quote is the inconsequential
re
Do not be hectoring or arrogant. Those who
disagree with you are not necessarily stupid or insane. Nobody needs to be
described as silly: let your analysis show that he is. When you express
opinions, do not simply make assertions. The aim is not just to tell readers
what you think, but to persuade them; if you use arguments, reasoning and
evidence, you may succeed. Go easy on the oughts and shoulds.
Do not be too pleased with yourself. Don't
boast of your own cleverness by telling readers that you correctly predicted
something or that you have a scoop. You are more likely to bore or irritate
them than to impress them.
Do not be too chatty. Surprise, surprise is
more irritating than informative. So is Ho, ho, etc.
Do not be too didactic. If too many
sentences begin Compare, Consider, Expect, Imagine, Look at, Note, Prepare for, Remember or Take, readers will think they are
reading a textbook (or, indeed, a style book).
J O U R N A L E S E
& S L A N G.
Do not be too free with slang (eg, He really hit the big time in 1994). Slang, like
metaphors, should be used only occasionally if it is to have effect. Avoid
expressions used only by journalists, such as giving people the thumbs up, the
thumbs down or the green light. Stay clear of gravy trains and salami tactics.
Do not use the likes of. And avoid words and expressions that are ugly or
overused, such as the bottom line, high profile, caring (as an adjective), carers, guesstimate (use guess), schizophrenic (unless the
context is medical), crisis, key, major (unless something else nearby is
minor), massive (as in massive inflation), meaningful, perceptions and
prestigious.
Politicians are often said to be highly
visible, when conspicuous would be more appropriate. Regulations are sometimes
said to be designed to create transparency, which presumably means openness.
Governance usually means government.
Try not to be predictable, especially
predictably jocular. Spare your readers any mention of mandarins when writing
about the civil service, of their lordships when discussing the House of Lords,
and of comrades when analysing communist parties.
In general, try to make your writing fresh.
It will seem stale if it reads like hackneyed journalese. One weakness of
journalists, who on daily newspapers may plead that they have little time to
search for the apposite word, is a love of the ready-made, seventh-hand phrase.
Lazy journalists are always at home in
oil-rich country A, ruled by ailing President B, the long-serving strongman,
who is, according to the chattering classes, a wily political
operator—hence the present uneasy peace—but, after his recent
watershed (or land
Prose such as this is freighted with codewords (respected is applied to someone the writer
approves of, militant someone he disapproves of, prestigious something you
won't have heard of). The story can usually start with the words, First the good news, inevitably to be followed in due course
by Now the bad news. A quote will then be inserted, attributed to one (never
an) industry analyst. Towards the end, after an admission that the author has
no idea what is going on, there is always room for One thing is certain, before
rounding off the article with As one wag put it . . .
Perhaps even more wearying for the reader is
the trendy journalist's fondness of vogue words and expressions. Some of these
are deliberately chosen (bridges too far; empires striking back; kinder,
gentler; F-words; flavours of the month; Generation
X; $64,000 questions; southern discomfort; back to the future; thirty-somethings; where's the beef?), usually from a film or
television, or perhaps a politician. Others come into use less wittingly, often
from social scientists. If you find yourself using any of the following words,
you should stop and ask yourself whether (a) it is the best word for the job
(b) you would have used it in the same context five or ten years ago, and if
not why not: address (questions can be answered, issues discussed, problems
solved, difficulties dealt with) care for and all caring expressions (how about
look after?) community (see above, under Unnecessary Words) environment (in a
writing environment you may want to make use of your Tipp-Ex, rubber or delete
button) focus (all the world's a stage, not a lens) participate (take part
in—more words but fewer syllables) partner ("Take your partners for
the Gay Gordons!" by all means, but dancing
together does not necessarily mean sleeping together—just as a sleeping
partner is not necessarily a lover) process (a word properly applied to the
Arab-Israeli peace affair, because it was meant to be evolutionary, but now
often used in place of talks) relationship (relations can nearly always do the
job) resources (especially human resources, which may be personnel, staff or
just people) skills (these are turning up all over the place—in learning
skills, thinking skills, teaching skills—instead of the ability to . . .
He has the skills probably means He can) supportive (helpful?) target (if you
are tempted to target your efforts, try to direct them instead) transparency
(openness?)
Such words are not wrong, but if you find
yourself using them only because you hear others using them, not because they
are the most appropriate ones in the context, you should avoid them. Overused
words and off-the-shelf expressions make for stale prose.
A M E R I C A N I S M S.
If you use Americanisms just to show you
know them, people may find you a tad tiresome, so be discriminating. Many
American words and expressions have passed into the language; others have vigour, particularly if used sparingly.
Some are short and to the point (so prefer
lay off to make redundant). But many are unnecessarily long (so use and not
additionally, car not automobile, company not corporation, court not courtroom
or courthouse, transport not transportation, district not neighbourhood,
oblige not obligate, rocket not skyrocket, stocks not inventories unless there
is the risk of confusion with stocks and shares). Spat and scam, two words
beloved by some journalists, have the merit of brevity, but so do row and
fraud; squabble and swindle might sometimes be used instead. The military, used
as a noun, is nearly always better put as the army. Gubernatorial is an ugly
word that can almost always be avoided.
Other Americanisms are euphemistic or
obscure (so avoid affirmative action, rookies, end runs, stand-offs,
point men, ball games and almost all other American sporting terms). Do not
write meet with or outside of: outside
Put adverbs where you would put them in
normal speech, which is usually after the verb (not before it, which usually is
where Americans put them). Choose tenses according to British usage, too. In
particular, do not fight shy—as Americans often do—of the perfect
tense, especially where no date or time is given. Thus Mr
Clinton has woken up to the danger is preferable to Mr
Clinton woke up to the danger, unless you can add last week or when he heard
the explosion. Prefer doctors to physicians and lawyers to attorneys. They are
to be found in Harley Street or Wall Street, not on it. And they rest from
their labours at weekends, not on them. During the
week their children are at school, not in it.
In an American context you may run for
office (but please stand in countries with parliamentary systems) and your car
may sometimes run on gasoline instead of petrol. But if you use corn in the
American sense you should explain that this is maize to most people (unless it
is an old chestnut). Trains run from railway stations, not train stations. The
people in them, and on buses, are passengers, not riders. Cars are hired, not
rented. City centres are not central cities. Cricket
is a game not a sport. London is the country's capital, not the nation's. Ex-servicemen are not necessarily veterans.
Bullet-proof vests are bullet-proof waistcoats unless, improbably, they are singlets. In Britain, though cattle and pigs may be raised,
children are (or should be) brought up.
Make a deep study or even a study in depth,
but not an in-depth study. On-site inspections are allowed, but not in-flight
entertainment. Throw stones, not rocks, unless they are of slate, which can
also mean abuse (as a verb) but does not, in Britain, mean predict or nominate.
Regular is not a synonym for ordinary or normal: Mussolini brought in the
regular train, All-Bran the regular man; it is quite normal to be without
either. Hikes are walks, not increases. Vegetables, not teenagers, should be
fresh. Only the speechless are dumb, the well-dressed smart and the insane mad.
Scenarios are best kept for the theatre, postures for the gym, parameters for the parabola.
Grow a beard or a tomato but not a company.
By all means call for a record profit if you wish to exhort the workers, but
not if you merely predict one. And do not post it if it has been achieved. If
it has not, look for someone new to head the company, not to head it up.
You may program a computer but in all other
contexts the word is programme.
Try not to verb nouns or to adjective them.
So do not access files, haemorrhage red ink (haemorrhage is a noun), let one event impact another,
author books (still less co-author them), critique style sheets, host parties
or loan money. Gunned down means shot.
And though it is sometimes necessary to use
nouns as adjectives, there is no need to call an attempted coup a coup attempt
or the Californian legislature the California legislature. Vilest of all is the
habit of throwing together several nouns into one ghastly adjectival reticule:
Texas millionaire real-estate developer and failed thrift entrepreneur Hiram Turnipseed . . .
Do not feel obliged to follow American
fashion in overusing such words as constituency (try supporters), perception
(try belief or view) and rhetoric (of which there is too little, not too
much—try language or speeches or exaggeration if that is what you mean).
And if you must use American expressions,
use them correctly (a rain-check does not imply checking on the shower
activity).
S Y N T A X.
Do not be sloppy in the construction of your
sentences and paragraphs. Do not use a participle unless you make it clear what
it applies to. Thus avoid Having died, they had to
bury him, or Proceeding along this line of thought, the cause of the train
crash becomes clear.
To never split an infinitive is quite easy.
Don't overdo the use of don't, isn't, can't, won't, etc; one per issue is
usually enough. And avoid the false possessive: London's Heathrow Airport.
Make sure that plural nouns have plural
verbs. Too often, in the pages of The Economist, they do not. Kogalym today is one of the few Siberian oil towns which
are [not is] almost habitable.
Use the subjunctive properly. If you are
posing a hypothesis contrary to fact, you must use the subjunctive. Thus, If I were you . . . or If Hitler were alive today, he could
tell us whether he kept a diary. If the hypothesis may or may not be true, you
do not use the subjunctive. Thus If this diary is not Hitler's, we shall be
glad we did not publish it. If you have would in the main clause, you must use
the subjunctive in the if clause. If you were to
disregard this rule, you would make a fool of yourself.
It is common nowadays to use the subjunctive
in such constructions as He demanded that the Russians withdraw, They insisted that the Americans also move back, The referee
suggested both sides cool it, In soccer it is necessary that everyone remain
civil. This construction is correct, and has always been used in America,
whence it has recrossed the Atlantic. In Britain,
though, it fell into disuse some time ago except in more formal contexts: I
command the prisoner be summoned, I beg that the motion be put to the house. In
British English, but not in American, another course would be to insert the
word should: He demanded that the Russians should withdraw, The Americans
should also move back, Both sides should cool it,
Everyone should remain civil.
Alternatively, some of the sentences could
be rephrased: He asked the Russians to withdraw, It is
necessary for everyone to remain civil.
Take care with the genitive. It is fine to
say a friend of Bill's, just as you would say a friend of mine, so you can also
say a friend of Bill's and Hillary's. But it is also fine to say a friend of
Bill, or a friend of Bill and Hillary. What you must not say is Bill and
Hillary's friend. If you wish to use that construction, you must say Bill's and
Hillary's friend, which is cumbersome.
Respect the gerund. Gerunds look like
participles—running, jumping, standing—but are more noun-like, and
should never therefore be preceded by a personal pronoun. So the following are
wrong: I was awoken by him snoring, He could not prevent them drowning, Please
forgive me coming late. Those sentences should have ended: his snoring, their
drowning, my coming late. In other words, use the
possessive adjective rather than the personal pronoun.
Do your best to be lucid ("I see but
one rule: to be clear", Stendhal). Simple sentences help. Keep complicated
constructions and gimmicks to a minimum, if necessary by remembering the New
Yorker's comment: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind."
The following readers' letters may be
chastening.
SIR—"Big, earnest and
well-conducted last Saturday's demonstrations, in Washington and San Francisco,
against the war in Indochina undoubtedly were."
Aided, chuffed and well-rewarded in his
search for memorable journalese this reader, in your May 1st 1971 edition on
the American mass demonstrations, most certainly was.
—DAVID C. BELDEN
SIR—At times just one sentence in The
Economist can give us hours of enjoyment, such as "Yet German diplomats in
Belgrade failed to persuade their government that it was wrong to think that
the threat of international recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would itself
deter Serbia" (August 15th 1992).
During my many years as a reader of your
newspaper, I have distilled two lessons about the use of our language. Firstly,
it is usually easier to write a double negative than it is to interpret it.
Secondly, unless the description of an event which is considered to be not
without consequence includes a double or higher-order negative, then it cannot
be disproven that the writer has neglected to
eliminate other interpretations of the event which are not satisfactory in
light of other possibly not unrelated events which might not have occurred at
all.
For these reasons, I have not neglected your
timely reminder that I ought not to let my subscription lapse. It certainly
cannot be said that I am an unhappy reader.
—WILLARD DUNNING
Mark Twain described how a good writer
treats sentences: "At times he may indulge himself with a long one, but he
will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses,
no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; when he has done with
it, it won't be a sea-serpent with half of its arches under the water; it will
be a torch-light procession." Long paragraphs, like long sentences, can
confuse the reader. "The paragraph", according to Fowler, "is
essentially a unit of thought, not of length; it must be homogeneous in subject
matter and sequential in treatment." One-sentence paragraphs should be
used only occasionally.
Clear thinking is the key to clear writing.
"A scrupulous writer", observed Orwell, "in every sentence that
he writes will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to
say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is
this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two
more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably
ugly?"