Does Length Matter? In Defense of the Long Word

Not long ago, the online Q&A at The Chicago Manual of Style Online posted this exchange:

Q. If an author uses a rare word like “prevaricators” when “liars” would be more clear, should an editor change it? The author’s audience is college graduates, not necessarily English or journalism majors.

A. Dumbing down someone’s prose should be done for a reason, never simply as a policy. A writer might use a five-dollar word for the sake of rhythm, humor, allusion, or precision. “Prevaricator” is a good word (and it isn’t the same as “liar,” although they overlap in meaning). It would be a shame to banish it from the language. So query it if you think “liars” is a better choice, but be prepared to say why.*

Writing and editing coaches love to hammer on using short words. But good teachers know that insisting on short words is merely a dramatic way to prepare students for the more refined message, which is to use the right word. And sometimes the right word is long. Nonetheless, some students (and for that matter, teachers) never move beyond lesson 1, inflexibly limiting themselves to monosyllables and taking umbrage with those who don’t.

Although Strunk and White are famously obnoxious on related points (e.g., omitting needless words), their advice on word choice is, sensibly, not to avoid long words, but to avoid “fancy” words. A fancy word, short or long, is one that’s inappropriate for the context. (Never mind that S&W themselves love fancy words and use them cheerfully. In The Elements of Style section on composition, for instance, they advise writers to have a “scheme of procedure,” where I might have suggested a “plan.” But maybe they want to sound bustling and authoritative.)

It’s easy to understand why long words get a bad rap. They have the power to simulate importance and to obscure meaning, perhaps the most dangerous of writing sins. I don’t think it’s overstatement to say that all our most important freedoms depend ultimately on clarity in the written word. But “short” does not always equal “clear.”

In short, in word choice, as in other things, long can be just right.

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*When that question came in, we briefly wondered whether it was a trap to get us to admit indirectly that a previous answer at the Q&A had been badly written:

Q. In a sentence, a colon should always be preceded by an independent clause. Why doesn’t the Chicago Manual state this explicitly? All your examples follow the principle. Why doesn’t the manual just say that the introductory clause has to be independent?

A. Because we’re a bunch of spineless and ineffectual prevaricators? Or because there are times when a colon need not be preceded by an independent clause? A case in point: this one.

But surely no one would do that.

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Photo courtesy of PickPik.

Comments

[Stan]

Down with sesquipedalianism!

Strunk and White's little book receives so much worship that I'm generally relieved to see a more measured appraisal. But are they really 'famously obnoxious'? I'd have thought their intolerance was little recognised outside of linguistic, editing, and academic circles.

[EditorMark]

Thank you for this. Too many editors are fond of finding synonyms that have fewer letters or are more "conversational." But in simplifying, they often compromise the subtlety of the message.

The reverse is true, of course. Writers love to find a fancy alternative that might not mean what they think it means.

Any word worth more than 10 points in Scrabble should set of a copy-editing alarm. But too often we underestimate the reader and cheapen the prose.

[Country Girl in the City]

Strunk & White was my university's style guide and it gave me fits. After graduation, I successfully avoided it until I started writing contracts.

I love EditorMark's 10 point Scrabble alarm.

[The Word Guy]

Whilst egregiously deliberate polysyllabic obfuscation is to be deprecated, the automatic prejudicial deconstruction of polysyllabic discourse is equally unacceptable. I could be wrong...

[Chaka]

I love the snarky A to the indignant Q. So I would guess that the editors are not concerned about what Conor Dillon calls "the jumper colon"? http://www.themillions.com/2010/07/colonoscopy-it%E2%80%99s-time-to-check-your-colons.html

[Carol Saller]

The jumper colon! It's my new favorite thing. Thanks, Chaka---
Carol

[Sandi Latimer]

My journalism training taught me to write for the eighth grader. Hence my writing is simple. I rarely use a long word and definitely not a fancy word.

[Bill Bennett]

As an editor, I used to tell my journalists not to use words which would have readers reaching for the dictionary.

This isn't quite the same as not using long words, it is the same as not using obscure, barely understandable words.

The moment a reader has to pause, reach for the Condensed Oxford (or whatever) and flick through its pages, you've lost them.

Incidentally, a Scrabble score of 10 is too low - there are many basic Anglo-Saxon words which easily pass that test. If we go down that route, I'd say 18 would be about right.

[Stan]

A word's length is of less consequence than its suitability. Nor would I stress "the right word", since there are degrees of rightness. Hmm. I might have to write more about this.

[lynneguist]

'Quit' is worth 13 points. Potential synonyms 'resign' and 'desert' are worth 7 each. Scrabble is a fantastic word game, but not a good copy-editing tool!

[Alison Rayner]

I just finished two business diplomas and repeatedly was harped on for striving for concise business writing. I strongly believe much of the enthusiasm for short prose wasn't about keeping it short for business purposes, but to truncate the long-winded diatribes students write just to increase the length of their papers. Many pieces I edited for group members or fellow students could have been cut by 2/3 just for the sake of the reader's sanity.

[Jason Zweig]

As one of my first editors once told me, "I like to keep all our writing demotic, for people who don't know what the word 'demotic' means." I nodded sagely and then, as soon as I left his office, scurried to the nearest dictionary to look up "demotic."

Good English prose, as Orwell pointed out, strikes a proper balance between words derived from Anglo-Saxon (which tend to be short) and Latinate words (which tend to be polysyllabic). Is there any more electrifying passage in the English language than Shakespeare's astounding "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red." After the sonorous, long-distance rumble of "multitudinous" and "incarnadine," the words "making the green one red" come crashing down upon our ears like sudden waves of doom. If some hack editor had Bowdlerized the long words out, the short ones would carry no weight. Long live long words...in their proper place!

[Michael Koplow]

"A case in point: this one."

This is an OK sentence. According to CMOS 15 (5.97), "A verb is the most essential part of speech--the only one that can express a thought by itself, in a complete grammatical sentence (with the subject understood) {Run!} {Enjoy!} {Think!}." Since this sentence has eight words instead of one, it's cool.

[Michael Koplow]

Six, in point of fact. But who's counting?