Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose. - P12
Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing. - P12
It’s the language of the flight attendant demonstrating the oxygen mask that will drop down if the plane should run out of air. "In the unlikely possibility that the aircraft should experience such an eventuality," she begins—a phrase so oxygen-depriving in itself that we are prepared for any disaster. - P13
Clutter is the ponderous euphemism. - P13
Clutter is political correctness gone amok. - P13
Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes. - P13
As George Orwell pointed out in "Politics and the English Language," an essay written in 1946 but often cited during the wars in Cambodia, Vietnam and Iraq, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. . . . Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Orwell’s warning that clutter is not just a nuisance but a deadly tool has come true in the recent decades of American military adventurism. It was during George W. Bush’s presidency that "civilian casualties" in Iraq became "collateral damage." - P14
|