Conciseness and circumlocution
Aug 1st, 2005 by Accidental Thinker
I subscribe to dictionary.com’s Word of the Day, which I receive daily via e-mail. Today’s word is circumlocution, so I decided to take this opportunity to reflect on the diverse nature of my writing style, depending on what or to whom I am writing.
Dictionary.com defines circumlocution as “The use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language.” My Merriam-Webster’s dictionary (my primary writing reference, along with The Chicago Manual of Style) defines it as “The use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea.” As any recipient of my long-winded, rambling, chatty personal e-mails can attest, I’m quite good at circumlocution, no matter whose definition you use!
Yet when I am writing for “real,” my writing style is very much the opposite. Strangely, or perhaps not, it takes much longer to write with fewer words, which is why I usually abandon the attempt when corresponding informally with friends. But good writing is clear, concise, and succinct, and this is what I strive for in most of what I create. It’s a must in training, where attention spans are short and literacy may be an issue. With my staff, whose work I edit, I’m always looking for ways to help them say more in fewer, more direct, simpler words. If any of them ever saw the stream-of-conscious circumlocution I am capable of, however, they’d never take my edits seriously again!
