What writers and others say
“There’s nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you’re making it up as you go along.”
— Ben Aaronovitch, British author
“After days and weeks and years of editing this junk so that even a caveman can understand it, I end up thinking that all writers are dead and left no sons.”
— Peter Adomeit, law professor, on translating legalese into English
“Ours is the age of substitutes: Instead of language we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, bright suggestions.”
— Eric Bentley, British-born American playwright
“relanguage. Term used by $300-an-hour consultants when $1 words, such as reword, rephrase or rewrite, would work just as well. ‘I think we can relanguage that to be more effective.'”
—BuzzWhack
“Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking. When companies or investment professionals use terms such as ‘EBITDA’ and ‘pro forma,’ they want you to unthinkingly accept concepts that are dangerously flawed.”
— Warren Buffett, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Plain English Handbook
“Dump the technospeak. Nobody understands it.”
— Joyce Bustinduy, global publisher, Levi Strauss & Company
“Please don’t write to me about solutions any more — they have become a problem.”
— Rob Calem, editor of The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, quoted on Jargon-Free Web
“Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.”
— Mason Cooley, American wit
“Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
— Roger Ebert, film critic, Chicago Sun-Times
“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well.”
— Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics
“When people don’t understand the material, they tend to go more with the original, often too-technical and undigested information from a primary source. A writer who really understands the information can translate it accurately into lay language.”
— Neita F. Geilker, Ph.D., aka The Grammar Guru
“I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said.”
— Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman
“Never impose your language on people you wish to reach.”
— Abbie Hoffman, U.S. social and political activist, founder of the Youth International Party, or yippies
“IABC Gold Quill entry: ‘Our challenge was to design and implement a multi-faceted customer experience initiative supported by a change-management strategy.’
“Judge’s comment: ‘Someone graduated with honors from buzzword college.'”
— International Association of Business Communications Gold Quill awards
“‘We don’t call them tattoos any more,’ said Richard Teerlink, chairman of Harley-Davidson, as the screen behind him showed a bicep emblazoned with what he called a ‘dermatological graphic’ of the Milwaukee motorcycle maker’s familiar symbol.”
— The Wisconsin State Journal
“Words matter. It’s time to stop prettifying the ugly stuff. Spousal abuse means wife beating. Global warming means the Earth is toast. Enhanced interrogation means torture. And here’s a bit of trivia for you: The Bush administration did not coin the phrase enhanced interrogation. Nor did it come from Jack Bauer on 24. Nope, it was the Gestapo that originated the little bon mot back in 1937.”
— Lisa Kogan, columnist, in “Lisa Kogan Tells All,” O magazine, March 2008
“Psychiatrist to patient on the couch: “O.K. What part of ‘malignant regression and pathogenic reintrojection as a defense against psychic decompensation’ don’t you understand?”
— Bob Mankoff cartoon in The New Yorker
“Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.”
— George Orwell, author whose work focused on the deception of political language
“Jargon allows us to camouflage intellectual poverty with verbal extravagance.”
— David Pratt, foreign editor for the Sunday Herald
“Jargon is a sure sign that intelligence has lost its way.”
— Marty Rubin, author, The Boiled Frog Syndrome
“Marketers don’t understand buyers, the problems buyers face, or how their product helps solve these problems. That’s where the gobbledygook happens … When you write, start with your buyers, not with your product.”
— David Meerman Scott, author of Cashing In With Content
“[Unfamiliar acronyms] create false economies. They may save a few words, but they may also frustrate and force the reader to take more time and effort to understand the document.”
— The SEC’s A Plain English Handbook
“Use defined words sparingly. Don’t let a shortcut for the writer become a roadblock for the reader.”
— The SEC’s Plain English Handbook
“There are 100 different special languages out there, and you must translate them into English. Does the reporter write medical Japanese like fractured metatarsal? Or did he translate that into plain English — broken foot? Legal German like stay the writ, instead of delay the order? Do your cops apprehend a perpetrator or catch a robber? Edit in your language, the words you talk with, not their jargon. Make the reporter translate it while he is getting the story.”
— Clarke Stallworth, veteran journalist with the Birmingham Post-Herald and The Birmingham News
“I work with people who honestly believe that he who dies with the most acronyms wins.”
— State Farm administrator
“Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer
“While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple.”
— Henry David Thoreau, American author and philosopher
“I looked through job ads that made no sense. My favorites were from the consulting firms: ‘You will learn to implement strategic management protocol decisions,’ et cetera. I worried that I would turn into some sort of cyborg after three weeks at one of these places; I would return home for my first Thanksgiving and communicate via streams of ticker tape issuing from my mouth.”
— Paul Tomm, a young journalist, in Jon Fasman’s novel, The Geographer’s Library
“From time to time, I am cruelly slandered by members of the public relations industry, who accuse me of writing unfairly about their profession. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love PR professionals. They’re a hoot, because they are such pathetic, desperate dillweeds.”
“I am right now looking at something called Your Market Wire Newsletter, a package of financial ‘news’ that arrives, unbidden, in journalists’ inboxes every week. It is filled with incomprehensibly written press releases on subjects of even less interest than can be found in a non-interest-bearing fiduciary debenture with negative yield. That’s exactly how these releases read, only they are less scintillating and more crammed with jargon. One word never suffices when 16 can do the job; big, important-sounding words are better than small, clear ones. Plans are ‘initiatives.’ They are not begun; they are ‘implemented.’ These releases could sedate an enraged rhinoceros.”
— Gene Weingarten, humor columnist, the Washington Post Magazine
“The bosses love jargon. They’ll load up on words they’ve just discovered, like ‘paradigm’ and ‘synergy.’ Then, when they’re really feeling frisky, they’ll use all their new toys in one sentence, along with some of the old standbys, as in: ‘We have implemented a new paradigm that will facilitate greater synergy among our stakeholders.'”
— Jim Ylisela, editorial director, Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc.
“Noise is the typographical error and the poorly designed page…Ambiguity is noise. Redundancy is noise. Misuse of words is noise. Vagueness is noise. Jargon is noise.”
— William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well
What words will resonate with your readers?
Jargon. Buzzwords. Acronyms. They’re things that make your reader go “huh?” And we need to get them out of our message.
Learn how to translate the language of your organization into the language of your readers at Rev Up Readability — our clear-writing workshop, starting June 19.There, you’ll learn how to define terms the reader-friendly way (Hint: It’s not the way you learned in Journalism 101.) How to steal techniques from Warren Buffett to make complex technical information easier to understand — and more fun to read. Plus: you’ll boost social media reach and influence, media coverage and your organization’s authority.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
