Like a Window Pane?

An evangelist for plain language, British novelist George Orwell says that ‘good prose is like a window pane’ (1946/2004: 10). This means that writing ought to offer an unobstructed view of the world. Joe Moran reminds us that a window pane is sometimes smeared with grime or frosted with ice, so it isn’t the perfect analogy. But Orwell’s point is this: write as clearly as possible and your thoughts will follow.

It’s sound advice, and it applies to academic research as much as literary fiction. But Orwell is talking about political writing in particular. Orwell thinks that the English language has become debased, like a currency that’s lost its value. And this impairs how we communicate about politics. Remember, he was writing in 1946. A lot was at stake. 

 For Orwell, it matters whether we write about pacification, or whether we write about inhabitants being driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, and the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets (1946/2004: 115). We might be tempted to use pacification because it’s a readymade word, just waiting for us to slot it into a sentence. But the problem is that it expresses a readymade thought, one that lacks insight and originality. We risk papering over violence and injustice with ‘euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness’ (1946/2004: 115).

Maybe good prose is less like a window pane and more like a concrete block: solid, durable, and versatile. A single block combines with other blocks to build any kind of structure, big or small. But if the blocks are cracked or water-damaged, the entire edifice could come tumbling down. The same goes for writing. Stale phrases, empty jargon, fuzzy language – these elements undermine the structural integrity of a text. That’s why we should strive for concreteness in our writing, even when describing the most abstract of ideas.

A shortcut to concreteness is choosing short, precise words over long, woolly ones. This is especially true for nouns and verbs. Think about how many nouns just float about, untethered to anything tangible (formation, specification, rationalization). Often, these nouns derive from ordinary verbs: to form, to specify, to rationalize. Helen Sword calls them ‘zombie nouns’ because they feed off verbs and drain them of life.

But verbs, too, can sap energy from a text. Some are just plain boring (is, can be, has been). Others are more devious. We think we sound clever when we militate against, render inoperative, or ride roughshod over. But what we really mean to say is prevent, disable, and ignore.

We academics are sometimes our own worst enemies. We manage to write perfectly intelligible text messages to our partner, to our parents, to the car mechanic down the road. But when we write journal articles, our words become tangled shoelaces that threaten to trip us up. Here’s an example from the Journal of Business Research:

Clarity of intent with regard to business outcomes is often easy, but clarity with respect to desired social outcomes can be more challenging. (Herrera, 2015: 1471)

Let’s put it this way: clarity of intent with regard to this sentence is not easy! There’s no main character in this story, and hardly any action. Reading the sentence is like listening to music that’s playing in another room; we recognize the song, but we can’t hear all the sonic details.

What is the sentence trying to say? The reference to business outcomes is key to unlocking the riddle – we’re talking about companies. So let’s rewrite it:  

Companies usually find it easy to identify their business goals, but they often struggle to identify their social goals.

The subject is more precise (companies) and the verbs are livelier (find it easy, struggle). It’s probably not the best sentence in the world, but it no longer chokes us – to quote Orwell – ‘like tea-leaves blocking a sink’ (1946/2004: 113). And that’s probably good enough. 

So, write concretely. Just stack each block, one after another, and you will have soon constructed something that’s built to last.