Words Fail Me (6 page)

Not long ago, Alan D. Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, showed that even the most absurd statements will be swallowed whole if they're concealed in obscure and pretentious language. He wrote an article, published as serious scholarship by an academic journal, in which he said: "It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical 'reality,' no less than social 'reality,' is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific 'knowledge,' far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epidemiological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities."

Pretty impressive! But what did he mean? Simply that there's no real world. We made it up. Yet no one realized this preposterous article was a gag until Sokal himself fessed up.

The most essential gift for a good writer, Hemingway wrote, is a built-in, shock-proof baloney detector. (No, he didn't use the word "baloney.") So develop a detector of your own and keep it in good working order. Know wind-baggery and artificial sweeteners and all the rest when you see them. Then write without them.

Here's to the verb! It works harder than any other part of the sentence. The verb is the word that gets things done. Without a verb, there's nothing happening and you don't really need a sentence at all. So when you go shopping for a verb, don't be cheap. Splurge.

Because verbs are such dynamos, writers often take them for granted, concentrating their creativity on the nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. This is a big mistake. Find an interesting verb and the rest of the sentence will practically take care of itself. Controlled studies have shown conclusively that a creative verb generates twice the energy of a noun of equal weight and density, and three times that
of an adjective or adverb. Trust me. I've got the figures here somewhere.

Learn to spot provocative verbs. Newspapers are a good source. A friend of mine is a particularly colorful writer, and I often wondered how she came up with such sparklers. One day she told me. "I read the sports pages and collect interesting verbs like 'pummel' and 'clobber' that I religiously copy into a little notebook." She reconsiders every verb she's written, then replaces the dull ones.

How can you detect a dull verb? Your nose knows. Take a whiff. If a sentence has a musty smell, there's a stale verb lurking somewhere—in a cliché (
Intel
plays
hardball
), in a predictable or routine phrase (
A shot
rang
out
), or maybe in a passive guise (
He
was given
an A
instead of the active and more forceful
He
got
an
A). Passive verbs, by the way, are often a symptom of indirect writing. There's more about how to protect yourself from this highly communicable disease in chapter 21.

English is a vast, rich language, packed with interesting verbs. Use them. I'm not saying you should sit with
Roget's Thesaurus
at your side, plucking out wacky, eccentric verbs and shoehorning them into every one of your sentences. Just try a juicy verb once in a while.

Interesting verbs are easy to recognize: they're fresh or unusual; a small surprise now and then grabs the reader's attention. They're active (I'll talk about the exceptions later). And they're strong.

The strong ones are more than interesting—they're economical. They don't need to be propped up with extra words. Weak verbs need help (The
stockholders
asked insistently;
The detective
walked with a swagger
), but strong
ones support themselves (
The stockholders
insisted
;
The detective
swaggered
). So if you spot too many props in your writing—adverbs like
insistently
and prepositional phrases like
with a swagger
—replace them with stronger verbs.

Rooting out wussy verbs is an excellent way to start revising your work. (There's more about revision in chapter 30.) For instance, it's been my experience that
experience
is a mighty weak verb. Replace it if you can—and you nearly always can. In the handwritten draft of one of his lectures on literature, Vladimir Nabokov crossed out the word, changing "experience that magic" to "bask in that magic." Notice how the stronger verb illuminates the phrase.

As for passive verbs, before condemning them I'll offer a word or two in their defense. You might prefer them in these situations:

• When it's not important to say who did something:
The merchandise was stowed in the cargo hold.

• When you'd rather not say who's responsible:
My homework
has been lost.

• When you don't know whodunit:
Norman's manuscript
was stolen.

• When you want to delay the punch line:
Julia
was done in
by a spinach soufflé.

In most cases, though, a passive verb sits there like a plaster Buddha, one step removed from the action. The sentence
Their meal
was eaten
in three hours
is a snooze. You can hear the clock slowly ticking.

An active verb has more energy, more buzz; it gets to the point sooner and with fewer words. The sentence
They ate for three hours
has blood in its veins, not embalming fluid. You can imagine hungry people gobbling and snarfing. Life, my dear, is being lived, if I may be allowed a passive verb.

I can't stand call waiting, an annoying necessity at our house. I get discombobulated when I have to interrupt one conversation and start another, and maybe even another, then try to pick up where I left off.

Sentences can be confusing and disorienting, too. The subject is mentioned early on, then comes some other stuff, and maybe some other stuff, and by the time the verb shows up we've forgotten who's on hold. Putting a subject too far from the verb is asking the reader to take another call in mid-sentence.

Here's what happens when a verb falls too far behind:
Taking up his meerschaum, Holmes, secure in the knowledge
that Moriarty's goose was cooked, popped it into his mouth.
That's a confusing sentence, and not because it's too long. It's disorienting because the subject (Holmes)in too far from the verb (
popped
). What did Holmes do? We assume he put the pipe into his mouth, but for all we know, he might have popped the goose into Moriarty's.

The solution is to bring the actor (
Holmes
) and the action (
popped
) closer together:
Taking up his meerschaum,
Holmes popped
it into his mouth, secure in the knowledge that Moriarty's goose was cooked.
The sentence is just as long, yet there's no way to misread it.

If putting subject and verb close together is so easy and works so well, why do writers separate them? Perhaps they think it's less clunky to cram a lot of information in the middle of a sentence than to tack it on either end. Not true. Most of the time, it's smoother and clearer to put extra information at the front or the back than to lump it in the middle.

Even when we understand a sentence, we can often improve it by moving the subject and verb closer together. Keep your eye on the actor and the action in this example:
Drew,
seriously ticking off the personal trainer who was helping her drop twenty pounds for her role as a bulimic princess,
ate
a whole quart of Cherry Garcia.

If this sounds awkward, it's because we have to wait so long to find out what happened. There's too much information crammed in between the actor (Drew)and the action (ate). By the time we learn what Drew did that was so off-ticking, we've had a bit of a workout ourselves. Now let's put the doer next to what's being done:
Drew ate
a whole quart of Cherry Garcia, seriously ticking off the
personal trainer who was helping her drop twenty pounds for her role as a bulimic princess.

That's still a mouthful, but isn't it better? By keeping subject and verb near each other, you're dealing with one idea at a time. You aren't asking the reader to take another call, to put a thought on hold while you interrupt with more information.

There's a bonus here that goes beyond the sentence. Once you get into the habit of avoiding digressions on a small scale, you'll be able to spot them in larger chunks of writing. Just as the parts of a sentence sometimes get separated or out of order, so do the ideas that hold together paragraphs, chapters, even whole books. Hold that thought.

Did you ever wake up in the middle of the night, maybe while traveling or on vacation, and wonder where you were and what day it was? That's the feeling readers have when they can't tell where or when something is happening.

And when more than one thing is happening, the confusion multiplies. Take this sentence, please!
The director of technology announced that several employees were abusing their Internet privileges Tuesday at the staff meeting.

Excuse me? Did the chief techie say this at the staff meeting? Or was that where the hanky-panky took place? And goodness, look at the time. What happened Tuesday? The cybercrime or the announcement?

When we write, we often take such details as time and place for granted because they're obvious to us. They won't be obvious to the reader, though. This version clears things up:
At Tuesday's staff meeting, the director of technology announced that several employees were abusing their Internet privileges.
Simply by moving the time and the place, we leave no doubt about what happened on Tuesday, and where.

Even when there's only one thing happening, a sentence can be confusing if the time or place is unclear. Readers won't know where is there and when is then. Here's an example of fuzzy timing that you might find in an investment newsletter:
Our technical analysts predicted the stock market correction last week.

What happened last week, the prediction or the correction? Be clear. Make it:
Last week our technical analysts predicted the stock market correction.
Or:
Our technical analysts predicted last week's stock market correction.

When a reader is lost in space, a simple sentence can be simply maddening. What's the poor reader to make of this one?
Buck lectured about the typhoon in Dublin.

Was the typhoon in Dublin, or is that where Buck gave the lecture? The last I heard, Ireland wasn't in the tropics, so make it:
In Dublin, Buck lectured about the typhoon.
Or:
Buck lectured in Dublin about the typhoon.

Words that help point us in the right direction (prepositions such as
on, about,
and
around
) sometimes give confusing signals. The reader might take an unnecessary detour or even a wrong turn. Notice how the preposition
on
can give a sentence two very different meanings:
Jon wrote a book
on
Mount Everest.

Is Mount Everest the subject of the book? Or is that where Jon wrote it? You could clear up the confusion by using a clearer signal:
Jon wrote a book
about
Mount Everest.
Or if Jon likes to write in thin air, you could move the mountain:
On
Mount Everest, Jon wrote a book.

Here are two more examples of how crossed signals can send readers in the wrong direction:

The mouse ran
around
the clock.
If the mouse ran nonstop, say so. If the mouse circled the clock, write it that way.

There were rumors
about
the dormitory.
Was the dorm the subject of the rumors? Or were the rumors spreading through the dorm? Say it one way or the other.

Time and place sometimes go astray when a sentence has two or more verbs and one of them is an infinitive (a verb that's usually preceded by to). This example could be read in two ways:
Alec asked Kim to marry him
in
the Jacuzzi.

Did Alec propose in the Jacuzzi, or is that where he wants to get married? (Stranger things have happened.) Unless he wants a wedding in a whirlpool, make it:
In
the Jacuzzi, Alec asked Kim to marry him.
Better yet:
Alec proposed to Kim
in
the Jacuzzi.

This sentence could also be read in two ways:
Aunt Agatha threatened to disinherit Bertie
when
she caught him gambling.

Did she threaten Bertie
when
she caught him? Or
if
she caught him? Make it:
When
Aunt Agatha caught Bertie gambling, she threatened to disinherit him.
Or:
Aunt Agatha threatened to disinherit Bertie
if
she caught him gambling.

Some of the words we use to tell us when and where—
here, there, now, then, this,
and
that
—can leave readers scratching their heads. If these words are used carelessly, readers can't tell where is here and when is now.

In a letter to the local library board, you might find a sentence like this:
Since the new branch is so popular and the main library is underused, it is
here
we should spend our resources.
What does the writer mean? Should the bucks go to the new library, or the old one? In other words, where is
here?