Robert Fulford’s recent column addresses a favourite topic, irritating phrases: A boss I endured in my youth told me early in our relationship that he favoured “forward planning.” His voice spoke of stern commitment to management principles. Afflicted as I was by the frightened politeness of the young, I lacked the nerve to say that [...]
Tagged as:
clichés,
communication,
editing,
grammar,
insignificant verbiage,
jacques barzun,
language,
robert fulford,
vocabulary,
writing
A funny thing happened in the course of my last post: I committed the same error I was complaining about: putting readability before rigor. In an earlier version (this is where the problems began, perhaps: fussing over it too much) I had a lengthy excerpt from Seth Godin’s excellent post. In the process of making my post more [...]
Tagged as:
academics,
blogging,
editing,
malcolm gladwell,
pandering,
pedantry,
popularity,
precision,
richard florida,
seth godin,
writing
What is Good Writing?
by OpenConceptual on 07-02-2009
in commentary
A funny thing happened in the course of my last post: I committed the same error I was complaining about: putting readability before rigor. In an earlier version (this is where the problems began, perhaps: fussing over it too much) I had a lengthy excerpt from Seth Godin’s excellent post. In the process of making my post more [...]
Tagged as: academics, blogging, editing, malcolm gladwell, pandering, pedantry, popularity, precision, richard florida, seth godin, writing