My brother-in-law, an ex-banker and a journalist, sent me the following
about Bertrand Russel's thoughts on writing. Thought some of you might
like it:
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"First: Never use a long word if a short word will do.
Second: If you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences.
Third: Do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.
Take, say, such a sentence as the following, which might occur in a work of sociology: " Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable circumstances, whether congenital or environmental, chanced to combine in producing an individual in whom many factors deviate from the norm in a socially advantageous manner." Let us see if we can translate this sentence into English. I suggest the following: 'All men are scoundrels, or at any rate almost all. The ones who are not must have had unusual luck both in their birth and in their upbringing.' This is shorter and more intelligible and and says just the same thing. But I am afraid any professor who used the second sentence instead of the first would get the sack."
(Portraits From Memory London: Allen and Unwin 1956)
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"First: Never use a long word if a short word will do.
Second: If you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences.
Third: Do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.
Take, say, such a sentence as the following, which might occur in a work of sociology: " Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable circumstances, whether congenital or environmental, chanced to combine in producing an individual in whom many factors deviate from the norm in a socially advantageous manner." Let us see if we can translate this sentence into English. I suggest the following: 'All men are scoundrels, or at any rate almost all. The ones who are not must have had unusual luck both in their birth and in their upbringing.' This is shorter and more intelligible and and says just the same thing. But I am afraid any professor who used the second sentence instead of the first would get the sack."
(Portraits From Memory London: Allen and Unwin 1956)
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