Corporate Circumlocution

Yeah, I know. Seeing the word “circumlocution” probably made you want to run away from my blog like it was chasing you with a butcher knife in the opening scene of a crime show. I only used that highfalutin’ word because I saw it in this other nerdy-cool blog. I won’t tell you what other nerdy-cool blog until you suffer through reading mine.

Circumlocution is using a slew of words when one will do. I’ve done it before, and probably will again. But if I do, I expect one of you to call me on it in order to afford me an opportunity to utilize a different approach in the event that someone has a requirement for writing in the near future.

Whew. I should have ended that sentence after “will call me on it.” At the very least, I should have written it like so: But if I do, I expect one of you to call me on it, so I’ll consider a different approach next time.

Circumlocution shows up most often in corporate, legal and academic writing. I give the lawyers a break because (a) they have to put up with a lot of lawyer jokes (b) starting a war of words with a corporate legal department never ends well. For the rest of you, heads up. Even if you’re not a writer, everybody writes something from time to time. The six rules below will help you choose words that get to the point in business letters and emails.

-Never use utilize. Use “use.”

-In a timely manner? Think “quickly” or “promptly.”

-Aforementioned, thusly, and “that being said?” Don’t even go there.

-With the exception of?  Use except.

-Carry on a conversation? Talk.

-At this point in time? Would “now” work instead? Or you can at least drop “in time.”

You’ll find other good examples of circumlocution and a fun graphic in this article in PR Daily.

What other cumbersome or convoluted phrases do you often see in business letters? 

Passive Aggressive

A professor once told me in a moment of frustration, brought on by reading too many English 101 papers, that freshman “don’t know their passive from a hole in the ground.”

I can still see her scrawling across the paper she was grading, “For clarity in your writing, focus on using active voice instead of passive.” When the student got the paper back, he probably took one look and went out for a beer. After all, the whole passive/active thing is hard to wrap your head around when you have no fermented barley and hops in your bloodstream.

Because I was young and impressionable, I latched onto the professor’s outrage and developed a tendency to be passive aggressive. By that I mean I get a little aggressive when someone changes my copy from active voice to passive voice.

This is active voice: Malia adores her husband Steve.

This is passive voice: Steve is adored by Malia.

Malia is the actor or agent in this sentence, the person/subject doing the action, so the initial emphasis should be on her. Steve is the object or recipient of Malia’s action, so to speak. Hubba, Hubba

This is even worse passive voice: Steve is adored. It’s worse because it begs the question by whom?

This is still passive voice: Steve is adored by many women.

This is active voice: Many women adore Steve. It also begs a question, but not one related to grammar: Does Malia know and is she OK with it?

If, unlike me, you are a big fan of passive voice, you might have a future in the Oval Office. Wikipedia says the passive phrase “Mistakes were made” was used by* Ulysses S. Grant in 1876, by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and by Bill Clinton in 1997, inspiring the labels “past exonerative tense” and “past evasive tense.” Clearly, using the passive voice comes in handy for acknowledging error, but deflecting responsibility for having made a mistake.

As American journalist Sidney J. Harris was once quoted as saying, "We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice--that is, until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'"


Whew, that's some heady stuff. Is it time for a beer yet?

*"Used by," as used here, is also passive.

Who's That

It seems to be a trend that has reared its ugly head on Fox News and NPR alike, so it can’t be blamed on America’s great political divide. I don’t know where it came from or whether the cat dragged it in, but I do know that hearing this particular verbal faux pas is as grating to me as a knife being handle-dragged, blade down and screeching through a metal sharpener.

I’m talking about the propensity of reporters and pundits these days to use “that” when I think they should use “who.” I’ve always believed you should use who when you refer to people and that when you refer to objects. Just the other day, I heard someone on a network who shall remain nameless casually say this: “The people that are responsible for this are never around to accept blame.” Horrors. Referring to people as “that” and not “who” seems to relegate them to having the humanity of a cold, damp concrete wall.

But as it usually happens, just when I find another reason to preen and glow over being so indisputably right, someone comes along to broom-slap me off my pedestal. Today that someone was my idol Grammar Girl. She quotes this from the American Heritage Dictionary:

            “It is entirely acceptable to write either the man that wanted to talk to you, or the man who   wanted to talk to you.”

Apparently, even Chaucer flagrantly (at least in my book) used "that" when referring to people. But even though I may stand corrected, that doesn’t mean I still won’t secretly smile whenever someone uses “who” the way I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh.