
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 24, 2008
/ 21 Sivan 5768
The Power Of Short Words
By
Richard Lederer
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I'm careful of the words I choose.
I like them short and sweet.
Because I cannot ever know
Which ones I'll have to eat.
Contrary to what some people seem to believe, simple writing is not the
product of simple minds. Asimple, unpretentious style has both grace and power.
By not calling attention to itself, it allows the reader to focus on the message.
Good writers are not afraid to use short, everyday words. They know it's
possible to write clearly, convincingly and even powerfully with short words.
An item titled "The Long and Short of It," from the Members' Handbook of
SPELL the Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature
illustrates:
"You don't have to use long words when you write. Most of the time, you
can make your points quite well with short ones. In fact, big words may get in
the way of what you want to say. And what's more, when you write with short
words, no one will need to look them up to learn what they mean.
"Short words can make us feel good. They can run and jump and dance and
soar high in the clouds. They can kill the chill of a cold night and help us keep
cool on a hot day. They fill our hearts with joy, but they can bring tears to our
eyes, too. A short word can be soft or strong. It can sting like a bee or sing like
a lark. Small words of love can move us, charm us, lull us to sleep. Short words
give us light and hope and peace and love and health and a lot more good things.
A small word can be as sweet as the taste of a ripe pear, or tart like plum jam.
Small words help us to think. They are, in truth, the heart and the soul of clear
thought.
"When you write, choose the short word if you can find one that will let
you say what you want to say. If there is no short one that fills the bill, then
go ahead and consider the utilization of a sesquipedalian expression as a viable
alternative, but be cognizant of the actuality that it could conceivably be
incumbent upon many of your perusers to expend, by consulting a dictionary
or perhaps an alternate lexicon of particularized patois, copious quantities of
their invaluable time in attempting to determine the message you are endeavoring
to impart to them through the instrumentality of your missive."
Note that until the word ahead, all the words are cobbled from a single syllable.
Now that we're polysyllabically positioned, let's bloviate loquaciously
with this classic hippopotamomonstrosesquipedalian statement:
"In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your super
ficial
sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical, or psychological observations,
beware of platitudinous ponderosity.
"Let your conversation and communications possess a clarified conciseness,
a compact comprehensibility, a coalescent consistency, and a concatenated
cogency.
"Eschew all conglomerations of flatulant, bloviated vapidity, jejune babblement
and asinine affectations.
"Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations
possess intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade or thrasonical
bombast. Sedulously eschew all polysyllabic profundity, pompous
prolixity, sebaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity and grandiloquent
garrulity."
That is, talk and write in short words.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Richard Lederer Archives
Comment by clicking here.JWR contributor Richard Lederer is a language maven. More than a million of his books, which have been Book-of-the-Month Club and Literary Guild alternate selections, are in print. His latest work is Presidential Trivia: The Feats, Fates, Families, Foibles, and Firsts of Our American Presidents
© 2008, Richard Lederer
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|