Another Post on..Style

Following on from an earlier post about STYLE, I realised I had omitted an important book Do I Make Myself Clear? Why Writing Well Matters Harold Evans (2017). Evans was the editor of the London "Times" before moving to the States and his book offers a useful guide, with the Intro opening by referencing Orwell’s classic Politics and the English Language

Words have consequences. The bursting of the housing bubble that led to the Great Recession revealed that millions had signed agreements they hadn’t understood or had given up reading for fear of being impaled on a lien.

But as the book and movie The Big Short make clear, the malefactors of the Great Recession hadn’t understood what they were doing either. This book on clear writing is as concerned with how words confuse and mislead, with or without malice aforethought, as it is with literary expression: in misunderstood mortgages; in the serpentine language of Social Security; in commands too vague for life-and-death military actions; in insurance policies that don’t cover what the buyers believe they cover; in instructions that don’t instruct; in warranties that prove worthless; in political campaigns erected on a tower of untruths.

with the following chapters 

I. Tools of the Trade

1. A Noble Thing

2. Use and Abuse of Writing Formulas

3. The Sentence Clinic

4. Ten Shortcuts to Making Yourself Clear

5. Please Don’t Feed the Zombies, Flesh-Eaters, and

Pleonasms

II. Finishing the Job

6. Every Word Counts

7. Care for Meanings

8. Storytelling: The Long and Short of It

III. Consequences

9. Steps Were Taken: Explaining the Underwear Bomber

10. Money and Words

11. Buried Treasure: It’s Yours, but Words Get in the Way

12. Home Runs for Writers

Posts often echo in my mind after they’re written and suggest an updating – 

hence this post.

And I would also recommend The Tyranny of Words Stuart Chase (1938) 

Is it possible to explain words with words?

Can some of the reasons why it is so difficult for us to communicate with

one another by means of language be set forth in that same faulty medium?

It is for the reader to judge.

I have read a few books which have broadened my understanding of the

world in which I live. These contributions I here attempt to pass on. To

them I have added much illustrative material and a few conclusions of my

own. The subject dealt with—human communication—has worried me for

many years. I believe it worries every person who thinks about language at

all. Does B know what A is talking about? Does A himself know clearly

what he is talking about? How often do minds meet; how often do they

completely miss each other? How many of the world’s misfortunes are due

to such misses?

As a result of this uneasiness I long ago formulated a few rules which I

tried to follow in my writing and talking. They were on the edge of the

subject which concerns us in this book. In due time I found certain men

who had penetrated boldly into the heart of the subject, equipped with tools

of analysis more sharp than any I had used. I follow behind them here. I do

not tell all that they tell, because I do not understand all that they tell. So

this is not a full and careful account of the findings of other explorers into

the jungle of words, but only an account of what I found personally

illuminating and helpful.