False formality
Image: Steve Adcock via Pixabay (licence)
The saying goes that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. The same is true for writing. Style – in how we choose an outfit or structure a sentence – evidences our desire to be taken seriously. People notice when we ‘make an effort’ with writing, the same way they notice when we wear a freshly ironed shirt.
But it is possible to try too hard and miss the mark. Once, when trying to dress a university essay up in more ‘formal’ attire, I ignored a red squiggly line under a word I’d used: ‘thusly’. My professor returned the essay, circling the offending word and writing in the margin: ‘Nice try, but not a word’.
Though a desire for formality may not have driven you to invent a new word, many writers try to elevate their tone by swapping out simple words for ones that seem more formal.
A common example I see is using the more elevated ‘utilise’ instead of ‘use’. To ‘utilise’ means to make practical use of something, so it is not a straightforward replacement of a word with its synonym. Other ones I often see are ‘endeavour’ instead of ‘try’ and ‘facilitate’ instead of ‘help’.
So how can you keep an eye out for false formality infecting your writing? Well, first look at the verbs you’re choosing. Like the examples above, imposter verbs are often the culprit. As an editor, I believe the simpler the verb, the more effective the sentence.
This is important to remember because nouns can complicate a sentence. Proper nouns (people’s names, place names) slow the reader down because they are often unique, full of unfamiliar letter sequences and potentially context-dependent. Simple verbs help to prevent cognitive overload.
A good rule of thumb when editing your own work is if you can change the verb to a simpler one, you should. This is like the common editor’s credo that if you can remove a clause from a sentence without changing its meaning, you should.
While I like simplifying a verb for clarity where possible, there are circumstances where this doesn’t help. In a contract or a piece of legislation, more formal verbs justify their position by having a technical meaning that ensures clarity.
The false formality present when we dress up sentences reveals something significant for me about communication: that to write is to express a desire for a reader to understand you. Formality trips us up because it places a desire for a reader to see you as intelligent above the desire to be understood.
