A Quote by William Zinsser

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.

William Zinsser

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American Circular Clutter Disease Frills Jargon Meaningless Pompous Society Strangling Unnecessary Words Writing

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William Zinsser
American - Writer
October 7, 1922 - May 12, 2015

Clutter is the disease of American writing.

William Zinsser

Make your copy straightforward to read, understand and use. Use easy words; those that are used for everyday speech. Use phrases that are not too imprecise and very understandable. Do not be too stuffy; remove pompous words and substitute them with plain words. Minimize complicated gimmicks and constructions. If you can't give the data directly and briefly, you must consider writing the copy again.

Jay Abraham

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

William Strunk, Jr.

Problematic' is one of these meaningless jargon words that people on the internet outrage circles throw at one another.

Moshe Kasher

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

William Strunk, Jr.

Where jargon turns living issues into abstractions, and where jargon ends by competing with jargon, people don't have causes. They only have enemies.

V. S. Naipaul

I joined forces with the American Cancer Society in 2010 as a spokesperson for the N.F.L.'s 'A Crucial Catch' campaign, which benefits the American Cancer Society. This was important to me because I lost my mother to breast cancer, and I have always felt a strong commitment to doing all I can to fight this disease.

Larry Fitzgerald

It's so easy to use tired, shopworn figures of speech. I love using long, fancy words but have learned - mostly from writing my biography of Winston Churchill - that short, strong words work better. I am ever-vigilant against the passive and against jargon, both of which are so insidious.

Gretchen Rubin

There is a triple layer of jargon when writing about climate change. You have the scientists, who are very cautious now because of the amount of climate denial. Then you have the U.N. jargon - I had to carry around a glossary of terms. It was like an alphabet soup.

Naomi Klein

Hidden behind the facade of pompous jargon and noble affections, there is more sheer larceny per square foot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than any place else in the world.

Richard Ney

Anyone who thinks they're important is usually just a pompous moron who can't deal with his or her own pathetic insignificance and the fact that what they do is meaningless and inconsequential.

William Thomas

Words like meditation, karma, samskaras, they're just words. You can get into the jargon, you can speak it, but that doesn't mean you'll be any freer.

Frederick Lenz

The constructions of language, which is to say the constructions of thought, are formed within experience, not the other way around.

Wendell Berry

In the 1970s, family history wasn't yet thought of a serious field for study. I was terrified of being laughed at by other historians. I called my book 'The Social Origins of Private Life.' It should have been 'As Pompous as You Want to Be.' Every sentence was academic jargon, and if I said X, I qualified it with Y.

Stephanie Coontz

Sports allow men to build up situations of emergency. What he then demands of himself is unnecessary achievement - and unnecessary sacrifice. He artificially creates the tension that he has been spared by affluent society.

Viktor E. Frankl

Editing while you're writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

Quincy Jones

A Quote by William Zinsser

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