Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon. … But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb which carries the same meaning that is already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. …
Clear thinking becomes clear writing: one can’t exist without the other. … It won’t do to say that the snoozing reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. My sympathies are with him. If the reader is lost, it is generally because the writer has not been careful enough to keep him on the path. … Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident.
Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind. … Consider all the prepositions that are routinely draped onto verbs that don’t need any help. Head up. Free up. Face up to. We no longer head committees. We head them up. We don’t face problems anymore. We face up to them when we can free up a few minutes. A small detail, you may say—not worth bothering about. It is worth bothering about. The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details. Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there. “Up” in “free up” shouldn’t be there. Can we picture anything being freed up? The writer of clean English must examine every word that he puts on paper. He will find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.
Transcribed by me from pages 7–9 and 13–14 of my paperback copy of On Writing Well (Second Edition) © 1980, Harper & Row, Publishers.
Tweet: I’ve been saying this for years: opt for simple, writers.
Tweet: “Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident.”
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I agree, but with one proviso, that a small amount of clutter creates a welcome for the reader. Our speech tends to be hopelessly baroque, and beautifully streamlined prose can be just a little bit intimidating. (Notice the cluttering ‘just’ there?)
The best example of which I can think offhand is Richard Bach’s “Illusions”; it’s a fine story told with just enough untidiness to draw one in…kind of a ‘go ahead and put your feet on the coffee table’ thing.
I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to add some commentary to this quote, Andrew. 🙂 I think voice also places a part.
Absolutely, Jamie. Voice is a vital ingredient; it’s the colloquialism of personality.
“every long word that could be a short word”
Sorry, but that statement is just plain wrong. One of the problems we have with literacy in this country is lack of vocabulary. Everyone is so busy conforming to 6th grade reading level, we’ve forgotten that reading can and should be an educational experience. I’m not saying use obscure words for the heck of it, but a writer should use the BEST word, not the shortest one.
I don’t think Zinsser was advocating a wholesale substitution. When he uses “every” here, I don’t read that as “every single one” but as “any”:
ANY word that serves no function, ANY long word that could be a short word, ANY adverb which carries the same meaning that is already in the verb, and so on.
So only those long words that impede clarity should be changed. 🙂
But if “every” isn’t the right word, shouldn’t he have said “any”? After all, he’s in favor of clarity, isn’t he? And it’s a shorter word, as well!
We’re playing with semantics here, I realize, but I’ve heard many, many people expounding on this subject, using exactly what Zinsser said to “PROVE” their point of view. I’ve never heard anyone before adding “when applicable”.
IMHO, short words that impede clarity need to be changed as well. And if they get changed to longer words, that’s fine with me!
I agree that the beauty of possessing a large vocabulary is using it!