One of the reasons I like Dreyer’s English is that although it tells you the rules of grammar it doesn’t threaten to have a heart attack if you disobey them. Admittedly, rules of grammar and “rules” of good writing are not synonymous, and people more famous than I have laid down the rules of writing which we writers have been bludgeoned to believe we ignore at our peril.
Nevertheless, I think these injunctions should be questioned. Every writer has agency: if you decide that, say, Orwell’s rules are correct, it’s better to do so after evaluating them in the context of your own writing rather than take them on trust as a general, all-purpose, list.
That means asking some questions:
What am I trying to achieve in this piece?
Will obeying this rule help or hinder me in that quest?
Even if it helps, would “doing my own thing” be better?
I tend to think of this in the same way as I think about driving. Nearly all motorists give a signal when turning left or right. You might think this is a good thing. However, if there are no other drivers or pedestrians around, giving a signal suggests that the driver is on automatic pilot, and not really aware of what’s going on. One of the things you will have been told if you have undertaken a course in advanced driving is to give signals only when there is someone there who needs to see them. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Similarly, I don’t think so-called rules of writing should be blindly obeyed, regardless of aims or context.
For example:
1. “Avoid jargon”. Jargon is any specialist term that non-specialists are unlikely to have heard of, or may they have heard of it but without really knowing or understanding what it means. But why should that prevent you using the correct term? If, for example, your expertise lies in physics, you may decide to not use the word “stress” in the context of metal being stressed, or put under stress. Why? Wouldn’t it be better to insert a footnote explaining what “stress” means to the physicist?
2. Avoid adverbs. Worthy books on writing tell us that most of the time you can take out words like "really" or "very" -- what, for example, is the difference between "useful" and "very useful", they might say. Either it's useful or it isn’t. However, if you are comparing two or more things, for example stating that product X is useful, and product Y is even more useful, that's fine, is it not? Besides, adverbs serve a purpose, or they wouldn’t exist, they would have fallen into disuse. My own inclination in this regard is to try to avoid adverbs if I can: most of the time I prefer to look for ways to make my point more elegantly. But if an adverb (or, for a noun, an adjective) does the job more efficiently, I use it.
3. Writing books sometimes decree that we should avoid speech mannerisms like "In fact". If it isn't a fact, they contend, why bother to say it? For emphasis, is the obvious riposte. Also, words and phrases like “actually” and “in fact” change the tone of what’s being said. For example, “I can’t believe I actually said that” is more forceful, in my opinion, that “I can’t believe I said that”.
4. Orwell says, “Never use a long word where a short one will do.” But sometimes the long word is the most appropriate one. That’s what should be the deciding factor: which word is the most appropriate, not which one has the fewest number of letters.
5. The “experts”, including Orwell, also believe that it’s better to cut a word out if it can be cut out. Although I agree that there’s seldom much value in retaining words that have no work to do, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. For example, telling the reader it was sunrise is a lot more efficient than rambling about the morn in russet mantle clad walking o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill. But I think the Hamlet version is somewhat more beautiful and evocative!
Having trashed all the injunctions so beloved of the writers of books on writing, I feel compelled to admit that there are a couple of rules I do agree with. These are from Orwell, but I’ve seen similar ones elsewhere as well.
“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”
Definitely. `it’s hard to avoid clichés, but if if you wish to make your writing seem as fresh and invigorating as possible then I think you have to make the effort.
“Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”
Of course! How could anyone disagree with such a rule?
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