Strong Language
If you heard the phrase “strong language”, you would probably think of profanity. Profanity is not the only example of strong language, but it is a good one. Strong language is not weak. It gets your attention. It conveys its meaning directly.
Dervala.net gives a few examples of what is not strong language.
When a software engineer writes vague instructions, her program breaks. When a scientist notes observations imprecisely, her experiment suffers. When a Green Beret commander gives a rambling order, his guys are put at risk.But a literary theorist who expresses his ideas in clear language betrays the expert mystery on which tenure depends. An MBA student who avoids crass jargon might fail for seeming not to know it. A marketer who relies on simple, direct language must know exactly what the product can do for the customerand understanding that takes effort.
It seems to me that engineers and scientists are also willing to approach writing humbly, as a craft in which they are not expert. To them, clear prose is not a gift or a luxury, its a skill that can be learned with careful practice; a skill that makes them better at their jobs. They share this view with old-fashioned advertisers like David Ogilvy, fiction teachers like John Gardner, and great essayists, like E.B. White, who said, The best writing is re-writing.
Both dervala.net and incisive have recently added content about strong language, because it is important. Erin Kissane is the author of incisive, who writes:
Its not about being right on principle. Its about the reasons that The Elements of Style is relevant to corporate strategy as well as corporate copy. Its about nailing the structure weve built for thinking and communicating and using it to speak, write, and act humanely.
Kissane begins writing about Strong Language with A Call to Arms, about why strong language is important.
source: Notable Words
Tags: clear alnguage, Elements of Style, good writing, Strong Language, Writing, writing online
