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Comment by conistonwater | Hacker News Reader

> If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Does anybody know if this has been (properly) studied? It's not quite so obvious that succinctness is good for readability and comprehension, and I think it could also go the other way.

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I don't know whether this has been or can be studied formally, but anecdotally I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage. Essays sometimes go on for a long time without saying much, and this can cause a lot of frustration for readers. I'm sure many of you have felt this frustration when reading political opinion pieces.

A fun exercise that illustrates Orwell's point, when reading a sentence, see how much you can reduce it without losing its original meaning. For instance, I frame your question as follows:

"Do we know if this has been studied? It's not obvious that succinctness is better for readability and comprehension. It might be worse."

You can think of this as the writer's version of code golf.

>but anecdotally I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage.

I love how meta this sentence is :)

;)

> anecdotally I think modern writing often suffers from excess verbiage.

Ironical, given that verbiage itself means excess.

On a tangential note, most of pg's articles are succinct and to the point. I feel he pays special attention to using the minimum number of words to express an idea.. one of the reasons I enjoy reading his essays.

PG is an exceptionally good essayist.

The content is.. often very debatable. But I think the style and presentation are so good they should be studied in schools.

You changed the meaning! For example, "It's not quite so obvious" means "It's not as obvious as Orwell seems to think it is", and is not the same as "It's not obvious". (Otherwise the "quite" would have been unnecessary, and I wouldn't have used it.)

;)

That's what the last rule is for:

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

That bit is something of a cop-out, because of how open-ended it is. One feels entitled to an explanation as to exactly when those rules should be broken, or what would qualify as barbarous. And why, exactly, do the previous bits of advice not mention their conditions of applicability?

Bear in mind, it is quite possible that Orwell meant what he said (in the direct, plain meaning of it), and got it wrong.

Maybe it's a pet peeve, but I loathe advice of the form "do just the right amount of a thing" that doesn't say how one is to determine the "right" amount. After all, if that was the easier part of following the advice, one wouldn't need the advice in the first place.

Writing is art. You will not find many good rules of the kind you're looking for.

"If it is possible to cut a word, cut it."

Isn't that worse than the original? Sorry, I don't understand your point.

The point is presumably that the original, despite sounding wise, is actually bad advice which even Orwell didn't actually follow.

Orwell was British. The use of 'to cut (a thing)' to mean 'to remove' comes from the American English vernacular. Though the lines are more blurred today, I suspect at the time this was written it would have been extremely odd for Orwell to use that phrasing. In British English, there's really not a shorter way to put that!

Interesting. Doesn't argue against dropping the "always", though.

If possible, cut a word.

Possibly cut words.

Cut words. (I think the if possible bit is kind of redundant).

Cleave it in twain?

Commentary on HN is starting to resemble Reddit. It’s not a good thing.

Brevity is the soul of wit

Not really. I don't think style can be reduced to a single rule, and that's pretty well understood.

http://i.somethingawful.com/u/garbageday/2013/goldmine/4word...

Omit needless words. (Strunk & White)

Just "omit words" should be sufficient.

It isn't.

Omit words like caveman and meaning communicated but writing guide sales bad.

Yeah, obviously you shouldn't omit a word if it's needed.

Well, I'm glad someone got it.

There's actually been a fair bit of studies of why languages often include redundancies -- which isn't exactly the same thing, but related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(linguistics)

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