Thinking about the reader

Here’s the “lead” paragraph from an article for the web I edited the other day:

For some expectant moms, even the slightest ache or pain can trigger a five-star alarm and trip to the doctor, but other pregnant women may well ignore a potentially serious warning sign because they think it is a normal part of pregnancy or they fear of being the girl who cried wolf.

This is from a professional writer with an impressive list of credits, including Woman’s World magazine, Arthritis Today, and the Wall Street Journal. The writer has a graduate degree in journalism, and has won awards for online reporting. I can only assume the writer was having a bad day. (Actually, what I really assumed is that the writer is used to having her work very heavily edited and simply doesn't care.)

That one-sentence paragraph has 52 words and a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 21.7. And can someone please tell me what a five-star alarm is? I know there is a product called a FiveStar Alarm that can be used to detect levels of dangerous gasses. So the writer may have been trying to use a metaphor, but I don’t think it works. I didn’t know there was such a product until I googled it, and I doubt many readers would know either. But what I really wonder is why a writer for whom English is not a second language would turn in an article with the phrase “they fear of being the girl who cried wolf." All that tells me is the writer didn’t bother to read any of the text before turning it in.

S and I were having dinner a few weeks ago with some close friends who are professional communicators like us, and at one point in the discussion the issue was raised about whether or not every assignment was equally important. J, an editor whose work I especially admire, said, “No, some assignments don’t matter. The job is just to get them out there.” Her point was that if an editor or a reporter treated every piece he or she is working on as if it needed to be perfect, the pieces that did truly matter might never get done.

I tend to agree with J. But that’s because I understand she wasn’t saying that there was any excuse for shoddy craftsmanship from a professional. And it doesn’t excuse a professional communicator for not considering the audience. You put out the best you can in the time you have with the attention it deserves. But if it isn’t clear, if it isn’t accurate, if the language isn’t at least used properly, you don’t present it.

If the writer of the one-sentence paragraph had any concern at all for the readers or for the subject matter, the paragraph might have looked like this:

For some expectant moms, the slightest ache or pain triggers a major alarm and a trip to the doctor’s office. But other pregnant women sometimes ignore a potentially serious warning sign. They may think it’s a normal part of pregnancy. Or they may simply not want to be seen as the girl who cried wolf.

Help Me I'm Reading and I Can't Get Up

I got a letter yesterday from a credit card company telling me of the changes in my "Credit Card Agreement." First, the letter provided a summary of the three changes. I assumed the intent was to use simpler language than the legalese used in the actual agreement. That way they could help me understand what the changes are. Very nice of them I thought. I do a lot of that same sort of thing for health consumers. That is I assumed it until I read the first summary. It felt like I was swimming in a tub of molasses:

Annual Percentage Rate for Variable Rate Accounts
The index for your account is changing from the Prime Rate. The new index will be the highest three month LIBOR (London Interbank Offer Rate) published in the northeastern edition of The Wall Street Journal in its Money Rates table at any time within the immediately preceding three months, including the month in which the index was determined, rounded up to the nearest one-quarter of a percentage point. As of July 1, 2009, your Margin would be the number of percentage points plus the index which would give you the same APR you now have on Purchases and Balance Transfers. This change is effective on the first day of your billing cycle that begins in April 2010.

They don't really want me to understand what they're doing, do they?

Wordbunnies

Did you know that if you google "dust bunnies" you will get -- in about 0.23 seconds -- close to two and a half million hits? If you google "dustbunnies" you still get 486,000 hits in 0.10 seconds. But it seems there are only 646 Websites that include the word "wordbunnies." Of course, I didn't go to all of them, but the ones I looked at were very vague about what a wordbunny is.

Well let's end the confusion. A wordbunny is one of those clumps of words that you see scattered about the surface of text that do little more than simply hold together as a clump of words. They don't really do anything else. It's like some form of static electricity pulls them together, and they lie there making it clear that the text owner doesn't like to text clean very much.

Here is a list of some of the wordbunnies I see most often:

• at the very least (as opposed to the penultimate least?)
• at the very most (ditto)
• not to mention (oops, it's going to be mentioned)
• that being said (we've already talked about this one)
• suffice it to say (then what is the rest of the text doing here?)
• in the final analysis (?)
• when all is said and done (will we still even be here?)
• as everyone knows (then please don't tell me again)
• that's not to say (yes it is, you just said it)
• every now and then (that means always, right?)
• with no disrespect (hmm, I'll be the judge of that)

Of course the list goes on. And to be fair (see what I mean?), these pesky little creatures have a way of showing up in even the most meticulous text owner's text, and often times right before company. There's nothing technically wrong with them. They just don't add anything to the text.

What wordbunnies would you like to see added to the list?

In case you missed it the first time

Here's today's redundancy gem from another article I'm editing:

Ongoing clinical trials are being conducted . . .

I hate it when you're conducting trials that have stopped.

More Words I Don't Like

Language should be organic. It should be allowed to evolve naturally without the imposition of artificial "rules of rightness." That being said, good language, like a good garden, is planned or laid out with an eye always toward healthy standards. Some people use phrases -- like others toss chemicals on plants -- without thinking of the harm they're doing. Having said that, I want to to point out that certain phrases have no real purpose in a sentence:

That being said; having said that; after saying that ...

I have several writers whose work I've been editing for a project who seem to use some variation of "that being said" in almost every article, and sometimes multiple times in the same article. I hear correspondents and analysts on TV use some variation of that phrase to help them move to the next point. It's verbage. It's used without thinking, and the way you teach student writers not to use cliches is to help them be aware that when there is no thought on the part of the writer, there is no thought in the reader.

Most of the time when I see the phrase, it doesn't add anything to the sentence it starts. When it does, what the writer really means is "but." I'm not interested in the writer proving to me that he or she is clever enough to be aware of a paradox or is so smart that he or she is about to show why the statement that was just made is not accurate (then why did you make it?). If you mean "but" say "but" and get on with your thought. That's what I want to know--what follows the "but." And if you aren't really contradicting or countering what came before, I don't even need the "but."

Redundancy Repeated

I just found this heading in an article I'm editing:

"Should pregnant women undergo testing during pregnancy?"

Well, no. Only if you are a pregnant woman who isn't pregnant should you undergo testing.

Verbage -- it's worse than verbiage

Okay, here's another one. It's not exactly redundancy, but it is verbage. What's the word "especially" doing in the following sentence?

This is especially important because people with rheumatoid arthritis have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

If it wasn't especially important, would it be important at all?