RE: Simply

["Van Boening, Tammy" <Tammy -dot- VanBoening -at- Fiserv -dot- com>]

In previous lives, so many of my editors enforced (sometimes, almost
violently!) this rule: 

Keep the word count down. Avoid conversational terms that add word count
without adding meaning. 

So, "simple" or "simply" was always struck down with a single swipe of
the dreaded red pen.

TVB


Tammy L. Van Boening
Senior Technical Writer
Fiserv Insurance Solutions 
Property and Casualty Division
303-729-7733
tammy -dot- vanboening -at- fiserv -dot- com
***********************************************************************
Keep smiling, at least until you get your own way.

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+tammy -dot- vanboening=fiserv -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tammy -dot- vanboening=fiserv -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
On Behalf Of neilson -at- windstream -dot- net
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 11:38 AM
To: Chris Borokowski; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Simply

Certain words and phrases that we encounter (but would never *outselves*
use) seem to derive from styles common in advertising or in legal
writing. 

Exempli gratia:

 - "Simply press the button, and we'll do the rest." (It's intended to
be comforting, not condescending.)

 - "Whereas the party of the first part, being desirous of the
obliteration of useless and annoying adjectives and adverbs as found in
the aforementioned technical and scientific writing..."

Those styles are suitable only in first drafts that we have dashed off
in a hurry or that we have imported wholesale from the advertising or
legal departments or from SMEs who think that bloat implies importance.
I am always amazed, on a second reading of my first drafts, at the
verbal sins I have committed. Will Strunk had it right: "Omit needless
words."  

--Peter Neilson

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