Pinker calls it ‘verbiage’

Some words and phrases that slip into our writing really deserve a visit from the delete key. I found myself frequently falling into the trap of being in love with certain words or phrases but later realising they really did not add anything to my piece of writing.

In his book The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker calls those extra words we clutter our sentences up with ‘verbiage’. Pinker gives these examples: ‘owing to the fact that, on a daily basis, at such time as’ (page 105), and the list goes on. Pinker reduces these phrases to their essential meaning which is: because, daily, when.

The Style Guide™ is very adept at highlighting these. It usually sends the piece off the grid to the bottom. Whenever I find that work is not getting into the grid, I invariably start looking for examples of sentences and paragraphs that lack concrete description and which are repeating the same idea using different words. I recently had an example where a father was arguing with his daughter. They were saying much the same thing repeatedly. It did not seem superfluous to the story when I read it, yet, when I started adding some description - such as elements in the room and actions - the story came alive.

Pinker talks about words ‘earning their keep’ and this is a phrase I have used many times. As I write I am always asking myself if the words I am using are redundant or relevant. There may be, as Pinker says, words that appear redundant but are in fact serving a purpose in the context of what I am writing.

What we are all looking for as writers is writing that is easy to follow, accessible, not complicated, and a pleasure to read.

There are examples of very long paragraphs that have, within them, clauses that methodically follow one another. These are usually easy to read. However, I have found the longer the paragraph the more likely the clauses or sentences will lose their way and confuse the reader. On some occasions, I have even found examples of writing where the last clause contradicts the first.

However, for everything there is an exception and once a writer is familiar with a rule that writer can break the rule and surprise readers with its elegance. Consider the oft-quoted opening paragraph to   ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. It appears very simple but, in fact, the paragraph is highly complex.

It starts the same way the much-parodied start to Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel Paul Clifford  does. However, while Paul Clifford’s opening, ‘It was a dark and stormy night…,’ is described by Writer's Digest  as ‘the bad poster boy for opening sentences’, Charles Dickens’ ‘It was the best of times…’ is much admired.   

Long sentences become difficult to follow, which is why most writers avoid them. However, we would probably all agree that ‘It was the best of times and the worst of times…’ is neither hard to follow nor, although long, do we ever lose our way.

So why is this? First, it appears simple but is in fact highly complex. The simplicity of ‘It was the best of times…’ is deceptive. This is because the string of ideas that follow the opening phrase engages our attention and holds it as we read on. We finally reach the end where we learn we are going either to heaven or to hell. We know this to be true….not the destination but that we will die. So why don’t we get offended when Dickens states the obvious? Coming from some other, less masterful, writer, we might shrug our shoulders and say, ‘so what?’ The reason lies in the repetition, rhythm, and regularity of each set of units. We learn almost immediately that what will follow is a series of statements matching each other in length and following the same pattern. Each opening statement is paired with its opposite – best/bad, belief/incredulity, wisdom/foolishness, and so on. We never have to re-read the paragraph to follow what the writer is saying. The writer trains us to expect these couplings and we read each with anticipation.

 I will leave you with the famous quote to enjoy: