VI

The Choice of Words (2)

Avoiding the superfluous word

A Reader of Milton must be always upon Duty; he is surrounded with Sense, it rises in every Line, every Word is to the Purpose; There are no Lazy Intervals, All has been Consider’d, and Demands, and Merits Observation. Even in the Best Writers you Sometimes find Words and Sentences which hang on so Loosely you may Blow ’em off; Milton’s are all Substance and Weight; Fewer would not have Serv’d the Turn, and More would have been Superfluous.

JONATHAN RICHARDSON, Explanatory Notes and
Remarks on Milton’s Paradise Lost, 1734

The fault of verbiage (which the OED defines as ‘abundance of words without necessity or without much meaning’) is too multiform for analysis. But certain classifiable forms of it are particularly common, and in this chapter we will examine some of these, ending with an indeterminate class that we will call ‘padding’, to pick up what has been left outside the others.

VERBOSITY IN ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

In a minute written in August 1835 by Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, he said of one of his diplomats in South America, who had neglected an admonition to go through his despatches and strike out all words not necessary for fully conveying his meaning: ‘If Mr Hamilton would let his substantives and adjectives go single instead of always sending them forth by Twos and Threes at a time, his despatches would be clearer and easier to read’.

It has been wisely said that the adjective is the enemy of the noun. If we make a habit of saying ‘The true facts are these’, we shall come under suspicion when we profess to tell merely ‘the facts’. If a crisis is always acute and an emergency always grave, what is left for those words to do by themselves? If active constantly accompanies consideration, we shall think we are being fobbed off when we are promised bare consideration. If a decision is always qualified by definite, a decision by itself becomes a poor filleted thing. If conditions are customarily described as prerequisite or essential, we shall doubt whether a condition without an adjective is really a condition at all. If a part is always an integral part there is nothing left for a mere part except to be a spare part.

Cultivate the habit of reserving adjectives and adverbs to make your meaning more precise, and suspect those that you find yourself using to make it more emphatic. Use adjectives to denote kind rather than degree. By all means say an economic crisis or a military disaster, but think well before saying an acute crisis or a terrible disaster. Say, if you like, ‘The proposal met with noisy opposition and is in obvious danger of defeat’. But do not say, ‘The proposal met with considerable opposition and is in real danger of defeat’. If that is all, it is better to leave out the adjectives: ‘The proposal met with opposition and is in danger of defeat’.

Official writers seem to have a curious shrinking from certain adjectives unless they are adorned by adverbs. It is as though they were naked and must hastily have an adverbial dressing gown thrown around them. The most indecent adjectives are, it seems, those of quantity or measure such as short and long, many and few, heavy and light. The adverbial dressing gowns most favoured are unduly, relatively and comparatively. These adverbs can only properly be used when something has been mentioned or implied that gives a standard of comparison. But we have all seen them used on innumerable occasions when there is no standard of comparison. They then have no meaning, and are the resort of those who timidly recoil from the nakedness of an unqualified statement. If the report of an accident says, ‘about a hundred people were taken to hospital but comparatively few were detained’, that is a proper use of the adverb. But when a circular says that ‘our diminishing stocks will be expended in a relatively short period’, without mentioning any other period with which to compare it, the word signifies nothing.

Sometimes the use of a dressing-gown adverb actually makes writers say the opposite of what they intended. The writer of the circular that said, ‘It is not necessary to be unduly meticulous in …’ meant to say ‘you need not be meticulous’, but actually said ‘you must be meticulous but need not be unduly so’, with the reader left to guess when the limit of dueness in meticulousness has been reached.

Undue and unduly seem to be words that have the property of taking the reason prisoner. ‘There is no cause for undue alarm’ is a phrase I have seen used in all sorts of circumstances by all sorts of people, from a government spokesman about the plans of the enemy to a headmistress on the occurrence of a case of polio. It is, I suppose, legitimate to say ‘Don’t be unduly alarmed’, though I should not myself find much reassurance in it. But ‘there is no cause for undue alarm’ differs little, if at all, from ‘there is no cause for alarm for which there is no cause’, and that hardly seems worth saying. Unduly has of course its own proper job to do, and does it in a sentence of this kind: ‘The speech was not unduly long for so important an occasion’.

As some adjectives seem to attract unnecessary adverbs, so do some nouns attract unnecessary adjectives. I have mentioned consideration’s fondness for the company of active, and I shall later refer to the inseparable companionship of alternative and accommodation. Danger is another word that is often given support it does not need, generally real or serious.

The special needs of children under 5 require as much consideration as those of children aged 5–7, and there is a serious danger that they will be overlooked in these large schools … There is a real danger … that the development of the children will be unduly forced …

Here we have serious, real and unduly all used superfluously. Serious is prompted by a feeling that danger always needs adjectival support, and real is presumably what grammarians call ‘elegant variation’: an effort made to avoid repeating the same word.* Unduly is superfluous because the word forced itself contains the idea of undue. Real danger should be reserved for contrast with imaginary danger, as, for instance, ‘Some people fear so-and-so but the real danger is so-and-so’. These things may seem trivial, but nothing is negligible that is a symptom of loose thinking.

Vague adjectives of intensification like considerable, appreciable and substantial are too popular. None of these three should be used without three questions being asked. Do I need an adjective at all? If so, would a more specific adjective not be better? Or, failing that, which of these three (with their different shades of meaning) is most apt? If those who write ‘This is a matter of considerable urgency’ were to ask themselves these questions, they would realise that ‘This is urgent’ serves them better. And those who write ‘A programme of this magnitude will necessarily take a considerable period’ will find it more effective to say ‘a long time’. Strong words like urgent, danger, crisis, disaster, fatal, grave, paramount and essential lose their force if used too often. Reserve them for strong occasions, and then let them stand on their own legs, without adjectival or adverbial support.

It would be a fairly safe bet that respective (or respectively) is wrongly or unnecessarily used in legal and official writing more often than any other word in the language. It has one simple, straightforward use, and that is to link up subjects and objects where more than one is used with a single verb. Thus, if I say ‘Men and women wear trousers and skirts’, you are left in doubt which wears which—which is no more than the truth nowadays. But if I add the word respectively, I allot (at the risk of being misleading) the trousers to the men and the skirts to the women. It can also be used in a harmlessly distributive sense, as in the sentence ‘local authorities should survey the needs of their respective areas’. But it contributes nothing to the sense here. There is no risk of local authorities thinking that they are being told to survey one another’s areas. Anyway, it is neater to write ‘Each local authority should survey the needs of its area’. Respective and respectively are unnecessarily or wrongly used in a sentence far more often than they are used correctly, and I advise you to leave them alone. You can always get by without them. Here is a sentence that demonstrates one of the many traps set by this capricious word. The writer has tried to make it distribute two things among three, and so left the reader guessing.

The Chief Billeting Officer of the Local Authority, the Regional Welfare Officer of the Ministry of Health, and the Local Officer of the Ministry of Labour and National Service will be able to supplement the knowledge of the Authority on the needs arising out of evacuation and the employment of women respectively.

It is as though one were to say ‘Men and women wear trousers and skirts and knickers respectively’. Who has the knickers?

But any excessive fondness the official may have for respective and respectively is as nothing compared with the fascination they exercise on lawyers. These are the opening words of a coal-mining lease:

This indenture witnesseth that in consideration of the rents reservations and covenants hereinafter respectively reserved and contained they the said A, B and C according to their several and respective shares estates rights and interests do hereby grant to the W. Company the several mines of coal called respectively X, Y and Z and also the liberty to lay down any tramroads railroads or other roads and to connect such roads trams and railroads respectively with any other roads of similar character respectively.

Five in this small compass, with none of them doing any good, and some doing positive harm! The person who drafted this lease seems to have used the word in much the same way as the psalmist uses Selah, flinging it down light-heartedly whenever there was the least sense of having tramped on long enough without one. A recent example, taken from a department circular, shows the magnetism of this word: ‘Owing to the special difficulty of an apportionment of expenditure between (1) dinners and (2) other meals and refreshments respectively …’. Having taken elaborate care to arrange the sentence so as to avoid the need for respectively, the writer found the lure of it irresistible after all.

Definite and definitely must be a good second to respective and respectively in any competition for the lead in adjectives and adverbs used unnecessarily. It can hardly be supposed that the adverb in the injunction — ‘local authorities should be definitely discouraged from committing themselves’—would make any difference to the official who had to carry it out. The distinction between discouraging a local authority definitely and merely discouraging it is too fine for most of us. Other examples are:

This is definitely harmful to the workers’ health.

The recent action of the committee in approving the definite appointment of four home visitors.

This has caused two definite spring breakages to loaded vehicles.

Sir Alan Herbert wrote in Punch in 1936 that he would give a prize ‘to the first Foreman of the Jury to announce a verdict of “Definitely Guilty,” and another to the judge who informs the prisoner that he will be “definitely hanged by the neck till he is very definitely dead” ’.

It is wise to be sparing of very. If it is used too freely it ceases to have any meaning. It must be used with discrimination to be effective. Other adverbs of intensification, like necessarily and inevitably, are also apt to do more harm than good unless you want to lay stress on the elements of necessity or inevitability. An automatic inevitably, contributing nothing to sense, is common:

The Committees will inevitably have a part to play in the development of the service.

The ultimate power of control which flows inevitably from the agency relationship.

Irresistibly reminded is on the way to becoming a cliché, especially useful to after-dinner speakers who want to drag in an irrelevant story, but by no means confined to them.

Other intrusive words are incidentally, specific and particular. In conversation, incidentally (like actually and definitely) is often a noise without meaning. In writing it is an apology for irrelevance, sometimes unnecessary or even ambiguous, as here: ‘Dennis Brain will play horn concertos by Haydn and Mozart, both incidentally written to order’. Is it incidental to the announcer’s announcement that the concertos were written to order, or to the working practices of Haydn and Mozart?

Particular intrudes (though perhaps more in a certain type of oratory than in writing) as an unnecessary reinforcement of a demonstrative pronoun:

No arrangements have yet been made regarding moneys due to this particular country.

We would point out that availabilities of this particular material are extremely limited.

On the same day on which you advised the Custodian of the existence of this particular debt.

So much fun has been made of the common use of literally in the sense of ‘not literally but metaphorically’ that it is perhaps hardly worthwhile to make more. But it would be a pity not to record some of the choicer blossoms from a recent flowering of this perennial in the correspondence columns of The Times:

(In an account of a tennis match) Miss X literally wiped the floor with her opponent.

(A comment by Punch on a statement in a newspaper that throughout a certain debate Mr Gladstone had sat ‘literally glued to the Treasury bench’) ‘That’s torn it,’ said the Grand Old Man, as he literally wrenched himself away to dinner.

(Of a certain horse) It literally ran away with the Two Thousand Guineas.

(Of a rackets player) He literally blasted his opponent out of the court.

M. Clemenceau literally exploded during the argument.

He died literally in harness.

VERBOSITY IN PREPOSITIONS

In all utility writing today, official and commercial, the simple prepositions we have in such abundance tend to be forgotten and replaced by groups of words more imposing perhaps, but less precise. The commonest of these groups are:

As regards

As to

In connection with

In regard to

In relation to

In respect of

In the case of

Relative to

With reference to

With regard to

They are useful in their proper places, but are often made to serve merely as clumsy devices to save a writer the labour of selecting the right preposition. In the collection that follows, the right preposition is added in brackets:

A firm timetable in relation to the works to be undertaken should be drawn up. (for)

It has been necessary to cause many dwellings to be disinfested of vermin, particularly in respect of the common bed-bug. (of)

The Authority are fully conscious of their responsibilities in regard to the preservation of amenities. (for)

It will be necessary to decide the priority which should be given to nursery provision in relation to other forms of education provision. (over)

The rates vary in relation to the age of the child. (with)

Coupons without restrictions as to how you should spend them. (on)

There may be difficulties with regard to the provision of suitable staff. (in)

Similar considerations apply with regard to application for a certificate. (to)

The best possible estimate will be made at the conference as to the total number of houses which can be completed in each district during the year. (of)

Note. If Gowers’s examples above had been written today, it would be unsurprising to find the phrase in terms of used for all of them (‘A firm timetable in terms of the works to be undertaken …’, ‘particularly in terms of the common bed-bug’, and so on). In terms of is now widely used to mean not only for, of, over, with, on, in and to, but also about, towards, against, and, by, including and because, as well as for example. And sometimes it means nothing. It circulates in what Gowers called the ‘highest places’. In 1995, the Committee on Standards in Public Life gave as its very first principle, under the heading ‘Selflessness’, that ‘Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest’. It would have been enough to remind the venal public servant that official decisions should be taken ‘solely in the public interest’.

The vagueness of in terms of is demonstrated by the following extract from a ‘meta-evaluation’, by a professor of public sector evaluation, of an external review of multiple other evaluations of a public body:

The timing of the technical review process has limited its value in terms of improving individual evaluation reports. Because it has been undertaken after a draft evaluation report has been produced, there has been little scope to respond to any gaps or problems in terms of terms of reference, evaluation design (methodology), data collection or analysis’.

Though substituting in for in terms of would make both these sentences clearer, perhaps more would be gained than lost by rewriting them as follows: ‘This review of the general principles on which the reports were based comes too late for there to be much chance of improving the reports themselves’.

The phrase in terms of is sometimes rightly used to make plain that a subject is being matched to a restricted class of language. But slack use of the expression is so prevalent that if one person now says of another, ‘He abused me in terms of extreme violence’, it is no longer clear whether the victim has endured a shocking verbal assault, or has suffered (say) being hit over the head with a bottle. Though in terms of has helped itself to the meanings of numerous other single words, its three-word form is not enough for some, who prefer the inflated version in terms of issues to do with. In the sentence, ‘How highly should issues about access to treatment rank in terms of issues to do with resource allocation …’, a mere in would suffice; and the authors of the sentence that starts, ‘In terms of issues to do with cosmopolitanism, we will show that …’, could have contented themselves with a simple on. ~

As to deserves special mention because it leads writers astray in other ways besides making them forget the right preposition. It may tempt them into a more elaborate circumlocution:

The operation is a severe one as to the after effects. (The after effects of the operation are severe.)

It is no concern of the Ministry as to the source of the information. (The source of the information is no concern of the Ministry.)

As to serves a useful purpose at the beginning of a sentence by way of introducing a fresh subject: ‘As to your liability for previous years, I will go into this’. But it also has a way of intruding itself where it is not wanted, especially before such words as whether, who, what, how. All the following examples are better without as to:

Doubt has been expressed as to whether these rewards are sufficient.

I have just received an enquiry as to whether you have applied for a supplement to your pension.

I am to ask for some explanation as to why so small a sum was realised on sale.

I will look into the question as to whether you are liable.

Note. Gowers himself uses the form the question whether elsewhere in this book (e.g. ‘We can now turn to the question whether some general advice can be given to fortify the writer against infection’). There may be readers who find themselves wanting to amend this to ‘the question of whether’; but omitting of, though unusual these days, is not wrong, and has the merit of brevity. ~

VERBOSITY IN ADVERBIAL AND OTHER PHRASES

Certain words beget verbosity. Among them are case and instance. The sins of case are well known. It has been said that there is perhaps no single word so freely resorted to as a trouble-saver and consequently responsible for so much flabby writing. Here are some examples to show how what might be a simple and straightforward statement becomes enmeshed in the coils of phrases formed with case:

The cost of maintenance of the building would be higher than was the case with a building of traditional construction. (Than that of a building of traditional construction.)

That country is not now so short of sterling as was formerly the case. (As it used to be.)

Since the officiating president in the case of each major institute takes up his office on widely differing dates. (Since the officiating presidents of the major institutes take …)

The National Coal Board is an unwieldy organisation, in many cases quite out of touch with the coalfields.

It is not easy to guess the meaning of this last example.

This trick of using case is even worse when the reader might be misled, though only momentarily, into thinking that a material case was meant:

Cases have thus arisen in which goods have been exported without the knowledge of this commission.

Water for domestic use is carried by hand in many cases from road standpipes.

There are, of course, many legitimate uses of the word, and writers should not be frightened away from it altogether. To borrow from Fowler, there are, for instance:

A case of measles.

You have no case.

In case of need, or fire, or other emergency.*

A bad case of burglary or other crime.

A law case of any sort.

Circumstances alter cases.

But do not say ‘It is not the case that I wrote that letter’, when you mean ‘It is not true that I wrote that letter’, or merely ‘I did not write that letter’.

Instance beguiles writers much as case does into roundabout ways of saying simple things:

In the majority of instances the houses are three-bedroom. (Most of the houses are three-bedroom.)

Most of the factories are modern, but in a few instances the plant is obsolete. (In a few of them.)

In the first instance can generally be replaced by first.

Another such word is concerned in the phrase so far (or as far) as … is concerned. A correspondent has written asking me to

scarify the phrase ‘so far as … is concerned’, e.g. ‘the war is over so far as Germany is concerned’, an actual instance; or ‘so far as he was concerned interest in the game was over’. After long and vigilant watch I have still to find a case in which a single preposition would not be clearer as well as shorter.

It is perhaps putting the case too high to say that so far (or as far) as … is concerned could always be replaced by a single preposition. I do not think that the phrase can be dispensed with by those who wish to emphasise that they have blinkers on, and are concerned only with one aspect of a question. ‘So far as I am concerned you may go home’ implies that someone else has a say too. Or again:

So far as the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act are concerned, the sum so released may … be utilised to reimburse you for expenses.

There is no other equally convenient way of making clear that the writer is removing only the impediment created by the Act and is not concerned with any other impediment there may be.

Possibly, though less certainly, this sentence might claim the same indulgence:

The effect of the suggested system, so far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned, would be to ensure rewards for research and development work until the new preparations were absorbed into the B.P.

It might be argued that we should not get quite the same meaning from ‘on the pharmaceutical industry’: this destroys the suggestion that there may be other effects, but the writer is not considering them.

But these are exceptions. There is no doubt that the phrase is generally a symptom of muddled thinking:

Some were opposed to hanging as a means of execution where women were concerned. (As a means of executing women.)

Wood pulp manufacture on a commercial scale is a very recent development so far as time is concerned. (Omit the last six words.)

The punishments at their disposal may not be of very serious effect so far as the persons punished are concerned. (On the persons punished.)

That is a matter which should be borne in mind because it does rule out a certain amount of consideration so far as the future is concerned.

I cannot translate this with any confidence. Perhaps it means ‘That is a matter which should be borne in mind because it circumscribes our recommendations for the future’.

The fact that is an expression sometimes necessary and proper, but sometimes a clumsy way of saying what might be said more simply:

Owing to the fact that the exchange is working to full capacity. (Because the exchange …)

The delay in replying has been due to the fact that it was hoped to arrange for a representative to call upon you. (I delayed replying because I hoped to arrange for a representative to call on you.)

So too until such time as, which is usually merely a verbose way of saying until. It may be useful to convey a suggestion that the event contemplated is improbable or remote or has no direct connection with what is to last until it occurs. But it cannot do so in,

You will be able to enjoy these facilities until such time that he terminates his agreement.

If the phrase is used, it should be such time as, not, as here, ‘such time that’.

There cannot, I think, ever be any justification for preferring the similar phrase during such time as to while.

As has other sins of superfluity imputed to it, besides the help it gives in building up verbose prepositions and conjunctions. Dr Ballard writes that as has

acquired a wide vogue in official circles. Wherever as can be put in, in it goes. And often it gets into places where it has no business to be. A man in the public service used to draw his salary from a certain date; now he draws it as from a certain date. Time was when officials would refer to ‘the relationship between one department and another’; now they call it ‘the relationship as between one department and another’. Agenda papers often include as an item : ‘To consider as to the question of …’ If this sort of interpolation between the verb and its object were extended to ordinary speech, a man would no longer ‘eat his dinner,’ but ‘eat as to his dinner’; or, to make the parallel complete, ‘eat as to the diet of his dinner’.

(P. B. Ballard, Teaching the Mother Tongue, 1921)

There is reason in saying, of a past date, ‘these allowances will be payable as from the 1st January last’, but there is none in saying, of a future date, ‘these allowances will cease to be payable as from the 1st July next’. ‘On the 1st July’ is all that is needed. The phrase as and from, not unknown, is gibberish.

As such is sometimes used in a way that seems to have no meaning:

The statistics, as such, add little to our information.

If they do not do so as statistics, in what capacity do they? The writer probably meant ‘by themselves’.

There is no objection to the sale of houses as such.

Here the context shows the writer to have meant that there was no objection of principle to the sale of houses.

Note. The word as, sometimes coupled with of, continues to be overworked. Equally as is used to mean equally, as yet to mean yet, as of yet to mean either yet or so far, as of now to mean now or sometimes from now on, and as of soon to mean soon. A needless as appears in all the quotations below:

Certain pairs of words have a way of keeping company without being able to do any more together than either could have done separately. Save and except seems to have had its day, but we still have with us as and when, if and when, and unless and until. As and when can perhaps be defended when used of something that will happen piecemeal (‘Interim reports will be published as and when they are received’). Nothing can be said for the use of the pair in a sentence like this one:

As and when the Bill becomes an Act guidance will be given on the financial provisions of it as they affect hospital maintenance.

Bills cannot become Acts piecemeal.

If and when might plead that both are needed in such a sentence as ‘Further cases will be studied if and when the material is available’, arguing that if alone will not do because the writer wants to emphasise that material becoming available will be studied immediately, and when alone will not do because it is uncertain whether the material ever will be available. But this is all rather subtle, and the wise course will almost always be to decide which conjunction suits you better, and to use it alone. I have not been able to find (or to imagine) the use of unless and until in any context in which one of the two alone would not have sufficed.

Note. There are new redundant pairings slowly becoming conventional in modern English. Outside of and hence why are two examples where the meaning of the second word has already been taken care of by the first:

Wales drop outside of top 100 of FIFA’s world rankings for the first time since 2000. (Daily Mail)

Met Office readings revealed that the atmosphere on Monday was as dry as desert air — hence why there were no clouds or aircraft contrails in the sky. (The Times)

Increasingly more is another example when misused as follows: ‘Clinicians are becoming increasingly more influential’ (British Medical Journal). But often it is the first word in a common pair that is redundant because it is an adjective that adds nothing to what it notionally describes. Future prospects, close scrutiny, temporary respite and mutually contradictory are all examples (the Guardian reports that ‘mutually contradictory witness statements often both felt true’). It should not be necessary on the London Underground to be reminded to take one’s personal possessions—as opposed to what kind? Above ground, the tautology ‘preventive maintenance’ has started to appear on the sides of Britain’s white vans. This novelty may have been inspired by the phrase preventive medicine; but unlike medicine, which can be intended to cure, all maintenance is preventive, otherwise it is repairs (or so one might feel justified in supposing: repairs is now itself sometimes recast as ‘corrective maintenance’). The formula ‘becoming to be’ is also on the up, as here: ‘Making ends meet is becoming to be more and more of a challenge’. This should either be becoming on its own, or coming to be. ~

Point of view, viewpoint, standpoint and angle, useful and legitimate in their proper places, are sometimes no more than a refuge from the trouble of precise thought, and provide clumsy ways of saying something that could be said more simply and effectively. They are used, for instance, as a circumlocution for a simple adverb, such as ‘from a temporary point of view’ for ‘temporarily’. Here are a few examples:

From a cleaning point of view there are advantages in tables being of uniform height. (For cleaning.)

I can therefore see no reason why we need to see these applications, apart from an information point of view. (Except for information.)

Bare boards are unsatisfactory from every angle. (In every respect.)

This may be a source of embarrassment to the Regional Board from the viewpoint of overall planning and administration. (The plain way of putting this is: ‘This may embarrass the Regional Board in planning and administration’.)

This development is attractive from the point of view of the public convenience. (This, I am told, provoked a marginal comment: ‘What is it like looking from the other direction?’)

Aspect is the complement of point of view. As one changes one’s point of view one sees a different aspect of what one is looking at. It is therefore natural that aspect should lead writers into the same traps as do point of view, viewpoint and standpoint. It induces writers, through its vagueness, to prefer it to more precise words, and lends itself to woolly circumlocution. I cannot believe that there was any clear conception in the head of the official who wrote, ‘They must accept responsibility for the more fundamental aspects of the case’. Aspect is one of the words that should not be used without deliberation, and it should be rejected if its only function is to make a clumsy paraphrase of an adverb.

VERBOSITY IN AUXILIARY VERBS

Various methods are in vogue for softening the curtness of will not or cannot. The commonest are is not prepared to, is not in a position to, does not see his or her way to and cannot consider. Such phrases are no doubt dictated by politeness, and therefore deserve respect. But they must be used with discretion. The recipient of a letter may feel better—though I doubt it—being told that the Minister ‘is not prepared to approve’ than ‘the Minister does not approve’. There is not even this slender justification when what is said is that the Minister is prepared to approve:

The Board have examined your application and they are prepared to allocate 60 coupons for this production. I am accordingly to enclose this number of coupons.

Are prepared to allocate should have been have allocated. As the coupons are enclosed, the preparatory stage is clearly over.

But there is a legitimate use of prepared to, as in the following:

In order to meet the present need, the Secretary of State is prepared to approve the temporary appointment of persons without formal qualifications.

Here the Secretary of State is awaiting candidates, prepared to approve them if they turn out all right. But the phrase should never be used in actually giving approval. It is silly, and if the habit takes hold, it will lead to such absurdities as,

I have to acknowledge your letter of the 16th June and in reply I am prepared to inform you that I am in communication with the solicitors concerned in this matter.

There are other dangers in these phrases. They may breed by analogy verbiage that is mere verbiage—and that cannot call on politeness to justify its existence. You may find yourself writing that the Minister will take steps to when all you mean is will, or that the Minister will cause investigation to be made with a view to ascertaining, when what you mean is that the Minister will find out. Take steps to is not always to be condemned. It is a reasonable way to express the beginning of a gradual process, as in:

Steps are now being taken to acquire this land.

But it will not do, because of its literal incongruity, in a sentence such as this one:

All necessary steps should be taken to maintain the present position.

There is a danger that some of these phrases may suggest undesirable ideas to the flippant. To be told that the Minister is ‘not in a position to approve’ may excite a desire to retort that the Minister might try lying on the floor, to see if that does any good. The retort will not, of course, be made, but you should not put ideas of that sort about your Minister into people’s heads. Pompous old phrases must be allowed to die if they collapse under the prick of ridicule. A traditional expression such as ‘I am to request you to move your Minister to do so-and-so’ now runs the risk of conjuring up a risible picture—of physical pressure applied to a bulky and inert object.

VERBOSITY IN PHRASAL VERBS

The English language likes to tack an adverbial particle to a simple verb and so to create a verb with a different meaning. Verbs thus formed have come to be called ‘phrasal verbs’. This habit of inventing phrasal verbs has been the source of great enrichment of the language. Pearsall Smith says that from them

we derive thousands of the vivid colloquialisms and idiomatic phrases by means of which we describe the greatest variety of human actions and relations. We can take to people, take them up, take them down, take them off, or take them in; keep in with them, keep them down or off or on or under; get at them, or round them, or on with them; do for them, do with them or without them, and do them in; make up to them, make up with them, make off with them; set them up or down or hit them off—indeed, there is hardly any action or attitude of one human being to another which cannot be expressed by means of these phrasal verbs. (Words and Idioms)

But there is today a tendency to form phrasal verbs to express a meaning no different from that of the verb without the particle. To do this is to debase the language, not to enrich it. Drown out, sound out, lose out, rest up, miss out on, meet up with, visit with and study up on are all examples of phrasal verbs used in senses no different from the unadorned verb. By contrast, in the newcomer to measure up to, the added particles give the verb a new meaning, the sense of to ‘be adequate to an occasion’.

Note. When Gowers wrote this he was under the false impression that all the ‘debasing’ phrasal verbs in his list had originated in America, leading him to remark that they had ‘so far found little favour’ in British English. Wherever they were from, British favour has been widely granted to them since, apart from rest up and visit with. The effect on Gowers of study up on for study or drown out for drown must have been comparable to the effect on a modern British ear of imagine up or fall up short (US News & World Report quotes an expert in benefits saying, ‘half the time you have enough for retirement and half the time you fall up short’). There are, however, plenty of redundant particles littered through British writing:

It is now the fourth time that the Taliban have used ‘secondary’ devices in the town of Sangin in which they kill or maim with an initial bomb and then await for a stretcher party before detonating another to kill the rescuers. (Daily Telegraph)

Germany’s staunch refusal to step up to the plate and take the responsibility of being Europe’s paymaster is causing investor sentiment to erode away day by day. (Guardian)

Will finds it difficult to speak of that dreadful day, but is prepared to elucidate on how he has brought up his sons. (The Times)

Former Labour chairman will leave parliament … after repaying back almost £15,000 worth of expenses claims. (Guardian) ~

OVERLAPPING

By this I mean a particular form of what the grammarians call tautology, pleonasm or redundancy. Possible varieties are infinite, but one of the commonest examples is writing ‘the reason for this is because …’ instead of either ‘this is because’ or ‘the reason for this is that …’.

The Ministry of Food say that the reason for the higher price of the biscuits is because the cost of chocolate has increased. (The reason … is that …)

Other versions of this error include:

The subject of the talk tonight will be about … (Either ‘the subject will be’ or ‘the talk will be about’.)

The reason for the long delay appears to be due to the fact that the medical certificates went astray. (Either ‘the reason is that’ or ‘the delay is due to the fact that’.)

By far the greater majority … (Either ‘by far the majority’ or ‘by far the greater part’.)

He did not say that all actions for libel or slander were never properly brought. (Either ‘that all actions … were improperly brought’ or ‘that actions … were never properly brought’.)

An attempt will be made this morning to try to avert the threatened strike. (Those who were going to do this might have attempted to do it or tried to do it. But merely to attempt to try seems rather half-hearted.)

The common fault of duplicating either the future or the past is another form of this error:

The most probable thing will be that they will be sold in a Government auction. (‘The most probable thing is that they will be sold …’)

The Minister said he would have liked the Government of Eire to have offered us butter instead of cream. (He ‘would have liked the Government of Eire to offer …’)

Note. As well as using versions of the reason why is because, many modern writers find themselves lured into a needless repetition of terms from the cluster both share the same equally in common.* The Independent reports of two public figures: ‘Both share a passion for education …’, but it is enough to say ‘both have a passion for’, ‘they share a passion for’, ‘they have a common passion for’, ‘they are equally passionate about’, or even ‘they have the same passion for’. Similarly, ‘Both suspects remain under armed guard in separate hospitals’ should read, ‘The two suspects remain under armed guard in separate hospitals’. ~

QUALIFICATION OF ABSOLUTES

Certain adjectives and adverbs cannot be properly qualified by such words as more, less, very and rather, because they do not admit of degrees. Unique is the standard example. When we say a thing is ‘unique’ we mean that there is nothing else of its kind in existence: ‘rather unique’ is strictly meaningless. But we can of course say almost unique.

It is easy to slip into pedantry here, and to condemn qualification of words that are perhaps absolutes but are no longer treated as being so—true, for instance, and empty and full. We ought not to be exercised by ‘very true’, or ‘the hall was even emptier today than yesterday’ or ‘this cupboard is fuller than that one’. But the following quotation goes too far:

It may safely be said that the design of sanitary fittings has now reached a high degree of perfection.

Nor does the comparative seem happily chosen in ‘more virgin’, which a correspondent tells me he has seen in an advertisement.*

PADDING

All forms of verbosity might be described as padding, and the topic overlaps others we shall come to in the chapters on choosing the familiar word and choosing the precise word. I use padding here as a label for the type of verbosity Sir Winston Churchill referred to in a memorandum entitled ‘Brevity’ that he issued as Prime Minister on the 9th August 1940. He wrote:

Let us have an end of such phrases as these:

‘It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations …’ or ‘consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect …’ Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.

‘Padding’, in the sense in which Sir Winston used the word, consists of clumsy and obtrusive stitches on what ought to be a smooth fabric of consecutive thought. No doubt it comes partly from a feeling that wordiness is an ingredient of politeness, and that blunt statement is crude, even rude. There is an element of truth to this: an over-staccato style is as irritating as an over-sostenuto one. But it is a matter of degree, and official prose is of the sort that calls for plainness rather than elegance. Moreover the habit of ‘padding’ springs partly from less meritorious notions—that the dignity of an official’s calling demands a certain verbosity, and that naked truth is indecent and should be clothed in wrappings of woolly words.

Sir Winston gave two common examples based on the word consideration. He might equally well have chosen phrases based on appreciate. ‘It is appreciated that’ (anticipating an objection that is to be met) and ‘it will be appreciated that’ (introducing a reason for a decision that is to be given) are very prevalent. They can almost always be omitted without harm to the sense.*

I have already referred, in Chapter III, to one way in which padding shows itself in official letters. Each paragraph is thought to need introductory words—I am to add; I am further to observe; I am moreover to remark; Finally, I am to point out; and so forth. Here is the same phenomenon in a circular sending a form for a statistical return:

      (i)  It should be noted that the particulars of expenditure … relate to gross costs.

     (ii)  It is appreciated that owing to staffing difficulties Local Authorities may not find it possible on this occasion to complete tables …

    (iii)  It will be noted that in Tables … the only overhead expenditure … which the authorities are asked to isolate is …

    (iv)  Table 4 … is intended to provide a broad picture.

The words italicised in the first three paragraphs are padding. They are no more needed there than in paragraph (iv), where the writer has wisely done without them, perhaps fearing to run out of stock.

Other examples:

I am prepared to accept the discharge of this account by payment in instalments, but it should be pointed out that no further service can be allowed until the account is again in credit.

The opportunity is taken to mention that it is understood …

I regret that the wrong form was forwarded. In the circumstances I am forwarding a superseding one.

It should be noted that there is the possibility of a further sale.

This form of padding deserves a special mention because the temptation affects officials more than most people, and because it is comparatively easy to resist: it shows itself more plainly than other more subtle temptations to pad. For the rest, padding can be defined as the use of words, phrases and even sentences that contribute nothing to the reader’s perception of the writer’s meaning. Some seem to be especially tempting to writers. I have mentioned consideration and appreciate; among other seductive phrases are in this connection and for your information. These have their proper uses, but are more often found as padding clichés. In none of the following examples do they serve any other purpose:

I am directed to refer to the travelling and subsistence allowances applicable to your Department, and in this connexion I am to say …

The Minister’s views in general in this connexion and the nature and scope of the information which he felt would assist him in this connexion was indicated at a meeting …

For your information I should perhaps explain that there is still a shortage of materials.

For your information I would inform you that it will be necessary for you to approach the local Agricultural Executive Committee.

This last example, taken from a letter I received myself, shows up the futility of this curious cliché. It was not even true that I was being told this ‘for information’: ‘for action’ would have been more appropriate.

Of course is another adverbial phrase that needs watching lest it should creep in as padding. In some contexts of course is used to impress readers by showing the writer’s familiarity with an out-of-the-way piece of information. But the official who overworks the phrase is more likely to do so from genuine humility, putting it in so as not to seem didactic: ‘Don’t think that I suppose you to be so stupid that you don’t already know or infer what I am telling you, but I think I ought to mention it’. Sometimes of course is wisely used for this purpose—if, for instance, the writer has good reason to say something so obvious that any touchy readers may feel that they are being treated like fools. It is much better in these circumstances to say ‘of course’ than its pompous variant ‘as you are doubtless aware’. Of course might with advantage have been used in:

It may be stated with some confidence that though it is possible for a blister-gas bomb to fall in a crater previously made by an H.E. bomb, the probability of such an occurrence is small.

In this example, ‘It may be stated with some confidence that’ is not only padding but also an absurdity. One might say with some confidence that this will not happen, or with complete confidence that it is improbable, but to feel only some confidence about its improbability is carrying intellectual timidity to almost imbecile lengths.

The following extracts, taken from two documents issued by the same Ministry at about the same time, are instructive. The first is:

I am to add that, doubtless, local authorities appreciate that it is a matter of prime importance that information about possible breaches of Defence Regulation … should reach the investigating officers of the Ministry … with the minimum of delay.

The second is:

After six years of war almost every building in this country needs work doing to it. The whole of the building labour force could be employed on nothing else but repairs and maintenance. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of families who urgently need homes of their own and will keep on suffering great hardship until houses can be provided for them.

The first of these is bad. It is the sort of thing that those who say civil servants write badly point to in support of their case. The first eighteen of its thirty-eight words are padding, and the last five are a starchy paraphrase of ‘as soon as possible’. The second is excellent. It has no padding, and says what it has to say in brisk, businesslike English. Why this difference of style in the same department? We can only guess, but I do not think the guess is difficult. The first was written for the guidance of local government officials only. It was a routine matter and no trouble was taken over it. Its language is the sort that local authorities expect and understand. But the second was intended to impress the public, and the writer was at pains to use language in a way that would be grasped at once and that would carry conviction. This, I have no doubt, is the explanation, but it is not sufficient. Whatever the purpose, the first is bad and the second is good.

The following introductory sentence to a circular is, I think, wholly padding, but I cannot be sure, for I can find no meaning in it:

The proposals made in response to this request show differences of approach to the problem which relate to the differing recommendations of the Committee’s Report, and include some modifications of those recommendations.

But padding is too multifarious for analysis. It can only be illustrated, and the one rule for avoiding it is to be self-critical.

Note. The style of some of Gowers’s bad examples above may now sound outmoded (‘I am to add that, doubtless, local authorities appreciate that it is a matter of prime importance that …’). But officials still resort to padding. A recent paper issued by the Ministry of Justice on ‘cost protection for litigants in environmental judicial review claims’ states ‘in respect of’ appeals that ‘It should be noted in this context that it will not necessarily be the claimant who has appealed …’. Here, ‘it should be noted in this context that’ is pure ‘wrapping of woolly words’.

Sometimes the padding in a sentence appears to have arrived there through simple fear of a blank page. Certainly the advertising puff below, reproduced in numerous tableware catalogues, bespeaks torment on the part of a writer with not much to say. The puff attempts to champion Blue Denmark, an antique plate pattern by the Staffordshire potters, Johnson Brothers:

Historically, blue and white ceramic design dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries—this is sufficient evidence itself to recognise the reason why Blue Denmark continues its long reign.

To put ‘historically’ at the start here adds nothing. To say ‘18th and 19th’ is perverse. And to end on ‘continues its long reign’ is an overblown metaphorical flourish. But to take ‘this is why’ and pad it with the words ‘sufficient evidence itself to recognise the reason’ is almost surreally illiterate. Unscrambled, what this sentence has told us is the following: ‘China patterns in blue and white date from the eighteenth century. This explains why Blue Denmark remains popular’. It is no great surprise to find that neither of these statements is true. ~