Legal Ramblings
[ Wednesday, September 28, 2005 (9:10 PM) ] ( link )
Destroyer of life and hope: I leave to others the easy task of praising Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, the classic treatise on good writing. Its most important and least followed advice is to write plainly and clearly, a principle to which I heartily subscribe. Here is one of my favorite passages on clarity; it's a masterpiece of humor, hyperbole, and (at the end) haughty disdain for the hapless reader. (You may have others: Though under a hundred pages, the book is endlessly quotable.) Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station and not being met because of a slipshod telegram. Usually we think only of the ludicrous aspect of ambiguity; we enjoy it when the Times tells us that Nelson Rockefeller is “chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, which he entered in a fireman’s raincoat during a recent fire, and founded the Museum of Primitive Art.” This we all love. But think of the tragedies that are rooted in ambiguity; think of that side, and be clear! When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair. (pp. 79-80)
Amen.
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