Abstraction, euphemism and uncertainty
The 15th instalment of Words of the Week, my glossary of poor language usage
Abstraction and abstract nouns
It is a good principle, wherever possible, to be as detailed and concrete as you can. A retreat into abstract nouns gives a sense of elevation always lifting you away from precise meaning. When the abstract nouns start to pile up it makes your writing generic. Too much abstraction is usually a sign that the writer has a space to fill but nothing to say. Try to translate every abstract noun into a concrete detail. If no translation can be done, the text is empty.
Look how unconvincingly distant this text, from the Microsoft annual report, sounds: “We fundamentally believe that we need a culture founded in a growth mindset. We also need to actively seek diversity and embrace inclusion to create a culture where everyone can do their best work”. Why “embrace inclusion” rather than include someone and why not illustrate the idea, not with this deadening prose but with a picture of a person who is telling their story.
In The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker supplies a useful list of generic words that have the effect of distancing the reader from the intended meaning. If you find yourself using words like level, strategy, issues, perspective, prospect, model, approach, assumption, concept, condition, content, framework, process, range or tendency, ask yourself whether you could not have written something more precise. As Pinker asks: “could you recognize a “level” or a “perspective” if you met one in the street?”
Euphemism
There are plenty of famous examples. Document-management at Enron, enhanced interrogation at the Pentagon. We no longer sack anyone, we “downsize” or “rationalise” or “rightsize”. Presumably, before we “rightsized” we were “wrongsize”, but nobody would ever say that. Sometimes the euphemism gets out of control. In 2013, HSBC described the firing of 942 people as “demising” them. It’s one thing to be downsized, another to be fired, but worse surely to be killed. This all derives from moral cowardice, from a desire to cover up unwelcome news. It never works. People find out the truth soon enough, so tell it straight.
Uncertainty
We have heard many times that the one thing businesses hate is uncertainty. Not a lack of growth or excessive regulation or high corporate tax rates but the mere prospect that such things might happen. Or might not. Or indeed that something else might happen because, in a time of uncertainty, who can tell?
Imagine that we had absolute certainty that, next week, the government will forcibly close down all shops that sell mops and buckets. Would the mop and bucket vendor express his delight: “though I face bankruptcy, the thing I hate most is uncertainty and at least that is over”? No, because uncertainty is being used, all the time, in two ways, only one of which makes any sense at all. The first sense is to say that some bad things might happen. This is true but it is always better to specify those looming events that are causing you anxiety. That is what you fear, not the uncertainty around them. The second sense is worse than that because people often use uncertainty to denote the obvious fact that we cannot predict the future. When did anyone ever say “we have entered a time of complete certainty”? The future is uncertain. It doesn’t become more or less so. What you mean is that the possible consequences are worse or that the likelihood of something terrible occurring has increased.
When the word uncertainty creeps into your head it is always good to ask yourself “what do I really mean here?” Uncertainty is the one of those words that have taken over thought and almost always mean less than we at first suppose.