• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Writing and the economy of language

Writing

There are four communication skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. These four skills can be classified using two parameters. The first parameter revolves round reception and production, while the second concerns oracy and literacy skills. On the one hand, listening and reading are receptive skills because they entail the assimilation of information, whereas speaking and writing are productive skills because they involve information dissemination. On the other hand, listening and speaking are oracy skills because their acquisition is innate, although it can be sharpened through formal learning, while reading and writing are literacy skills which can only be learnt and improved on through further learning.

Of the four skills, writing can be adjudged the most tedious. This is because the three other communication skills, and much more, are prerequisites for good writing. Writing is the most demanding because it is the only communication skill that you engage in alone but which eventually travels farthest. One or more other persons have to be involved before you can listen or speak, and you can also get to read a piece of writing within an audience’s hearing (not, ‘to an audience’s hearing’). By stark contrast, writing involves only the writer, who bears in mind his or her content, purpose and audience, as s/he engages in the onerous task. The complexity involved in writing makes it essential for one to be economical with language, in order to successfully make sense to those who will have to decipher the writer’s intent in the writer’s absence. Against this backdrop, this treatise will expatiate upon some ways to become a better writer through the careful deployment of language.

I shall enlighten the general public on the ABC of Communication, which is instrumental in turning out a good masterpiece. The A stands for accuracy, and being accurate is to be exact and correct. A writer must be able to capture his/her thought with exactitude. This is what it means to call a spade a spade. For instance, an expression such as, ‘I saw a reptile’, is devoid of accuracy and should be avoided when communicating, especially in writing where the writer will not be present to make clarifications. Since reptiles comprise different vertebrate animals, a good writer should be precise about what s/he had seen, whether it was a snake, a lizard, a crocodile, a turtle or a tortoise. This is the crux of accuracy in writing.

The B is brevity, which is the quality of being brief. It is highly essential for written communication. Most times, too many words make comprehension difficult, and wordiness is the manipulative style of one who does not have much to say. Along these lines, Bernard Shaw was once reported to have apologised for not having the time to write a short letter, though he had actually penned a long one. Frankly, words are like leaves; and where they abound excessively, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. If you truly intend to communicate, and a shorter word can deliver the message, never use a longer word. This piece, of course, does not target people who speak to bamboozle than inform. For instance, why does anyone have to be described as a man of ‘timbre and calibre’, when he could simply be called a respected, reputable, stylish, talented or witty man? Such roundabout descriptions are ways of creating obscurity. If the essence of writing is to communicate, then, instead of ‘acquainting’ your customer with the details, you can ‘tell’ him/her about them; rather than ‘soliciting’ his/her support, you can simply ‘invite’ it; and the goods can simply be ‘sent out’, instead of being ‘dispatched’ to him/her. Since the writer cannot tell how far his or her piece will travel, keeping it short and simple is always the better option. Grandiloquence is better reserved for the spoken context, where the speaker can ascertain the listeners’ interest in his or her verbosity.

The C stands for clarity. The written message should be clear, well planned and logically detailed. One must avoid ambiguous sentences that are capable of generating more than one meaning. For instance, a sentence such as, ‘A decision was taken on the boat’, could mean that a decision was taken concerning the boat or that a decision was taken while on the boat. Such sentences should be avoided or clearly disambiguated in subsequent sentences. One must also choose the right word in writing, in order to be clear. Synonyms must be carefully used in contexts. For instance, on the surface, ‘big’ and ‘great’, as well as ‘strong’ and ‘powerful’, may appear to mean the same thing. In closer assessment, it becomes clear that a man can be big without being great, and a person can also be strong but not powerful. A person can be a politician, yet not be a statesman. Again, an individual can uphold a cause without supporting it. It is, therefore, important for one to be clear as per one’s choice of words in writing.

This piece exposes the general reader to the four communication skills and discusses in greater detail the particular complexity that comes with writing, which is the most taxing of them. The hints given thereafter will greatly help anyone who wishes to become a better writer.