2/3 - Verbose or Concise? Quality or Quantity?
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but variety is the spice of life. As one may be able to glean from my particular style of writing, I enjoy luxuriating in language, spinning sentences and partaking in paragraphs.
Sorry, let me start again.
Short writing is good, but good writing is better. Maybe you know I like words.
Wait, wait, I preferred the first one…
Perhaps it is due to my love of writing that I find myself with such strong, (yet mixed) feelings on Danny Rubin’s article “Write Less, Say More: The Power of Brevity”. In his [very cleverly written]* article, he chooses to illustrate his point by [crossing out unnecessary words and] leaving only the bare minimum. Rudin believes that “you don’t need to write a lot or use big words to sound smart.”, and therefore, while writing in a professional context, one should place concision above eloquence.
To some extent, I agree. When delivering a coded message by carrier pigeon, lengthy writing can be a bit of a burden (or birden, if you'll excuse the pun). Brevity is a necessary tool for communication. Yet Rubin’s article makes the assumption that writing is only a means of communication. If it were so, then why was I able to craft two different sentences above with the same meaning? Synonyms, too, have no purpose in a purely communicative language.
Language has evolved along with us humans. No longer is it simply a way to let the other cave-dwellers know where the mammoth has gone and which berries cause swift death. The way we speak is continuously changing, as tongues pick up new words and discard old ones. There are so many ways to express the same sentiment, because language is not just used to impart information, but to convey feeling, meaning, and even beauty.
Let us return again to Rubin’s article which does not attack language itself, but rather its overuse in a professional context. To this, I do agree. If you have ever been handed a case file while on the run from a very angry ringmaster and his trained elephants, then you, too, know how important it is to be able to process information quickly and easily. Yet when Rubin insists that we shorten our writing because “most people don’t enjoy reading cover letters, resumes, or presentations,” our opinions begin to diverge. Instead of reducing the length of the supposed tedium of your writing, why not eliminate that tedium altogether? Shouldn’t we focus on making our writing enjoyable rather than brief?
Perhaps I am but a young, naive reader who believes too strongly in the power of words. Perhaps there is nothing to be done for those poor souls who find reading torturous. But then again, perhaps putting creativity and wordplay on the chopping block has never been the answer. I am firmly against restraining the wild stallion that is language.
Take Rubin’s advice if you desire, but also consider my own: know your audience and be brief, but rather than try to usher your readers out at the first opportunity, instead attempt to present them with a reason to stay. Show them that words are powerful, and beautiful, and instill in them a desire to befriend language and enjoy its presence.
- A.M. Ham
*These brackets are an attempt to emulate his style, despite this blogging platform not supporting strikethrough text
