3. Too Many Words

3. Too Many Words

Even if we have disciplined ourselves not to use technical jargon to the uninitiated, have
avoided dishonestly using emotive language (rather than reason) to persuade, have used
long words with discretion, avoided slang and cliché, there are still many pitfalls in the
use of language.
Of these, in business and commerce, one of the worst offences (because it wastes time) is
to use more words than necessary to convey our meaning, as, for example:
Broadly speaking, this may have the ultimate effect of doubling in numbers the
total of orders dispatched outwards in a single day.
This sentence has many superfluous words. „Broadly speaking‟ is surely implied in the
rest of the sentence. How else can one double but in numbers? „Outwards‟ is implied in
the word „dispatched‟. Tautology is the technical (JARGON!) word for expressions like
these, when the meaning is repeated, i.e.:
This unique ornamental vase, the only one of its kind…
A more economical version of the sentence above would read:
This may have the effect of doubling the number of orders dispatched in a single
day.
While the word single is implied in the expression in a day, it has been retained because
it adds force to the sentence.
A major cause of „too many words‟ or verbosity is the over-use of modifiers, i.e.
adjectives and adverbs:
The complete implementation of this overall programme will inevitably
necessitate extensive demands on the available resources of the appropriate
committees and other bodies concerned.

The difficulty – not to say tedium – inflicted on the readers of such writing is selfevident.
The surest way to bore people is to write, or say, too much. Such absurdities as
the true facts only cast doubt on the truth of the facts presented.
Another communication which won a „tripe‟ award was from a British Rail employee
who took 158 words to explain why a particular train had no buffet service. And a third
„tripe‟ award went to a local government official who devoted 104 words to asking a
local resident to trim his hedge.