the elements of junk english

In the spring of 1991, my undergraduate neuroscience adviser assigned me a most challenging and unusual task. In addition to sectioning rat spinal cord on the microtome, in addition to writing papers and preparing posters, and in addition to running the local computer network, I was to teach English to the lab’s newest post-docs, whose native language was Chinese.

Both had adopted “American” names in anticipation of their arrival in the United States and, in my opinion, were already proficient enough with English. Indeed, Joan’s and Angie’s TOEFL scores were as high as I had ever seen. But my adviser demanded a thorough knowledge of English usage on their part – not mere fluency – and so one day, he handed me Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and blurted, “I’m certain you’re familiar with this book. I want you to teach Joan and Angie straight out of it – cover to cover.”

It was, of course, the first time I had laid eyes on the slim text. I went directly to the library and devoted the next few hours to it. I had thought, at the time, that I was a fairly decent writer and speaker, but here were so many new rules and guidelines. Waves of fear ran through me as I read; how many grievous offenses had I unknowingly committed? How many infinitives had I split? How many times had I said that when I meant which and which when I meant that or farther when I meant further or vice-versa? And how often had I used between when I should have said among?

In the space of two months, Joan, Angie, and I made it through the whole of Strunk and White, and I’d like to think that our tutorials had a positive and lasting effect. I remember few of the details of our sessions, save those of the last, when we closed the pithy paperback for the final time and worked through some examples. After two or three, Angie suddenly said, “May I ask a question? This word – fuck – I seem to hear it a lot. When and how should I use it?” I tried to craft an answer as calmly, honestly, and thoroughly as I could. I explained the verb form first, and illustrated with some usage examples. I continued with adverbial and adjectival uses and had moved onto fuck-as-noun before our hour was up. I was astonished to find that I had written out 43 examples of the word in short phrases and was somewhat saddened at the prospect of necessarily erasing them from the whiteboard.

Profane as fuck may seem, it is innocuous according to the standards by which I now judge the English language, or at least corporate English as spoken in America.

— Let’s all think outside the box and incent the customer to grab the low-hanging fruit.

— We’re just not on the same page; I’m not tracking on any of your key learnings.

A confused jumble of clichés, jargon, and heretofore nonexistent or incorrect syntax and semantics now permeates and pollutes the language at a seemingly increasing rate. And to me, this is far more profane than any form of fuck. I have known this, at least at a subconscious level, for several years now, but it didn’t cross my threshold of full awareness until I read Ken Smith’s recently-published Junk English. Upon doing so, I had the very same reaction as I did when I read Strunk and White, for I realized that Junk was the very dialect I spoke each day. I floated from euphemism to abstract adjective, from one to another of Smith’s “flaccid” or “fat-ass” phrases. I generated things, employed methodologies, and went on fact-finding missions. Pretty impressive for a data analyst.

Smith’s book is a variant of Strunk and White that pays greater attention to the times than to the eternities, and it is much more an enumeration of mistakes than of rules. And although more focused, one could argue that it is no less important, for it delivers the same message as the nearly 70 year-old work: Speak and write with clarity. Each entry in Smith’s book hits a nerve with me; nearly each muddle makes me wince, because I’ve so often been guilty. Favorite (and most frequently committed, by me at least) offenses from Junk English:

(1) Cheapened Words
“There’s nothing wrong with describing the rise of Joan of Arc as a miracle, the Eiffel Tower unique, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper a masterpiece, the discovery of penicillin a breakthrough, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture a classic...When every executive is a visionary, every product revolutionary, every instance of mismanagement a crisis, every idea innovative, every unsolicited offer exclusive, by what names will we know the true articles when they come along?” (p30)

(2) The Default Dozen
“...the default dozen are twelve words that come to mind automatically when we neglect to think of better ways to say what we mean. They are: factor, focus, function, impact, issue, level, major, positive, process, quality, serious, and significant...” (p36)

(3) Machine Language
“Some people have had their English so debased – possibly it was never based to begin with – that they write and talk as if they were robots. Sometimes machine language is deliberate, an effort to lull the reader into oversight...Sentences such as Specific partnership objectives include promoting sustainable development in designs and project administration... deaden rather than awaken interest, as if they had been assembled from a series of binary equations.” (p80)

Strangely, fuck has almost taken on the status of a charming anachronism, for it is far too genuine, precise (despite its varied uses), and succinct for our times. Your company may have been fucked in the 1990s, but in 2003, the company for which you work is now sustaining a prolonged and necessary phase of right-sizing and streamlining.

But those of us who have read The Elements of Style and Junk English will have swallowed a bittersweet pill, for we know that if we take the advice of Strunk and White while avoiding Smith’s Junk, we may appear almost boring – not at all colorful, and certainly not nearly as persuasive as the new marketing manager who spews forth junk English as though it were his mother tongue. Yet we will speak and write clearly and honestly, and that may still be worth something to somebody, right? Seems like low-hanging fruit to me, anyway.

18-April 2003