I saw\u2013no kidding\u2013an instructional tape entitled “How to Make Your Point in 30 Seconds.”<\/p>\n
The tape was 60 minutes long.<\/p>\n
Go figure.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d think that the marvel of word processors and such would have improved our ability to communicate. Ha!<\/p>\n
Worst yet, those who profess to teach us how to do it usually completely suck at it. I remember some mealy mouthed dork instructing a class on business writing, saying you should “tell \u2018em what you\u2019re gonna\u2019 say, then say what you\u2019re gonna\u2019 say, then tell \u2018em what you just said.”<\/p>\n
Uh, yeah. That would make for compelling writing, wouldn\u2019t it? Snore.<\/p>\n
Why is writing in such a sad state of affairs? You may have surmised that I\u2019ve cooked up a theory on that. And here it is: The bureaucratization of America has made prose as dull as the cubicle clones that generate it.<\/p>\n
There is some weird compulsion for crappy communicators to puff themselves up by sounding “official.” They mimic the tone you\u2019d find in tangled, government regulations. They like to use a lot of flat words when a few well chosen ones would do better.<\/p>\n
Example? Sure. Bad: “Your girlfriend\u2019s face has an appearance not unlike my dog\u2019s posterior.”<\/p>\n
Good: “Your old lady looks like my mutt\u2019s butt.”<\/p>\n
Dull writing isn\u2019t the sign of a pensive and reflective writer. It\u2019s the sign of a moron. Which is why it\u2019s wise to avoid instructional techniques that plant the mind-weeds of dullness. There are too many morons out there as it is, I assure you…with brains not unlike my dog\u2019s posterior. And they judge their station in life by how much of their gibberish pollutes your field of vision. Memos, letters, rambling e-mails, instructions…egads, where does it all end?<\/p>\n
In my corporate yuppie days, I was once choking on a stream of dunderheaded memos from a Chief Financial Officer I\u2019ll call “Bob.”<\/p>\n
Why do I call him “Bob”? Because that was his name. Bob.<\/p>\n
With my flair for quiet rebellion, I merely threw Bob\u2019s memos away without reading them. Everyone else, by contrast, was playing mental Twister with the convoluted web of Bob\u2019s comments, clarifications and contradictions. Nobody was ever the wiser for my shameless disregard for all that noise.<\/p>\n
And the CNMI holds the record for generating noise. I\u2019ve seen three-page long government memos trying to say what a five-word sentence could say better. Whazzup with that? Who taught that kind of writing? If that\u2019s what the schools are teaching, I think we need to start back at “See Spot Run.”<\/p>\n
Indeed, in a world in which most points can be made in 30 seconds (ok, 60 for this piece, but it\u2019s worth it, right?), some folks probably haven\u2019t made a single succinct point in 30 years.<\/p>\n
I know Bob never did.<\/p>\n
Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. \u201cEd4Saipan@yahoo.com\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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