Historic, military metaphors and qualifiers

Welcome to week 17 of Words of the Week, where I teach you how to write better

Historic and historical

Misused routinely in financial markets. For something to be historic it needs to be notable. The Gettysburg Address was historic. It is also a historical event because it happened in the past. Previous prices of a stock are historical but they are rarely historic not least because they are too fleeting. Calling them “historical” reveals the banality of the point you are making so whenever the word springs to mind it might be a sign that the sentence needs to be reconstructed.

Military metaphors

Probably an even more important source of tough-sounding business talk than sport, perhaps because sport also abounds in military metaphors and passes them on. Captive market, gaining ground, pre-emptive strike, guerilla marketing, captains of industry, head hunter, make a killing, the sales force. But terms like the front line, call to action, in the trenches manage to sound both grandiloquent and tired at the same time.

Qualifiers

A good argument will be muffled and lost if you do not show confidence in it. Go through your prose searching for almost, apparently, fairly, in part, mostly, partially, presumably, possibly, seemingly, relatively, to some extent, largely and all other words that lessen the clarity and boldness of the proposition. Strip them all out and see how your argument tightens. Listen to how bold and how clear it has become. Now ask yourself: do you still mean it? Perhaps your excessive use of qualifiers is due to your inability to make up your mind. If so, come to a clear decision before you begin to write. Your language is telling us you don’t know what you mean, even if you haven’t realized it yourself yet.