Letters of Note: On bureaucratese and gobbledygookThis is a delightful memo sent by Civil Aeronautics Board chairman Alfred E. Kahn to the organization's top staff in 1977, begging them to please stop writing in "bureaucratese," and to instead use "straightforward, quasi-conversational, humane prose." He provides some specific examples that still apply nicely today. Wikipedia: List …
Tag Archives: writing
The New Yorker’s fiction is terrible.
The New Yorker’s fiction is terrible.* There, I said it. Every week it’s another story about uninteresting, unhappy people becoming more unhappy still. There is little to no action; virtually nothing happens. Often it’s well-written, in the sense that there are nice turns of phrases, and the characters are explored in a way that gives …