3. Clutter is an Enemy of Good Writing

1. Clutter is like weeds. Farmers are always behind weeds to fight, writers are also slightly behind clutter.
2. All the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that do not need any help are clutters. For instance, an "up" in "head committees up" and "we face up to the problems when we can free up a few minutes" does not serve any purpose.
3. Some adjectives come into the language to distinguish one with another thing but they debase both the language and the purpose of their use.  Such as, "personal" in "a personal friend of mine", "his personal feeling" or "her personal physician" debases both language and friendship, feeling, and physician. In these phrases the "personal" can be eliminated.
4. "Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing." Phrases like "currently”, “at the present time," or "presently", replace "now" in people and businesses.
5. "Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste disposal personnel and the town dump into the volume reduction unit."
6. "Clutter is political correctness gone amok."
7. "Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes." The General Motors used "volume-related production-schedule adjustment" to inform they had a plant shutdown. When companies completely fail or go belly-up, they are said to have "a negative cash-flow position."
8. "Clutter is the language of the Pentagon calling an invasion a "reinforced protective reaction strike" and justifying its vast budgets on the need for "counterforce deterrence."
9. Clutter remains as the verbal camouflage that reaches its new heights. To mean "now," General Alexander Haig started saying "at this juncture of maturization" during his tenure as President Reagan's secretary of state.    
10. "Clutter is the enemy." "Beware, then, of the long word that's no better than the short word: "assistance" (help), "numerous" (many), "facilitate" (ease), "individual", (man or woman), "remainder" (rest), "initial" (first), "implement”, (do), "sufficient" (enough), "attempt" (try), "referred to as" (called) and hundreds more."
11. "Beware of all the slippery new fad words: paradigm and parameter, prioritize and potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write."
12. Phrases like "It should be pointed out" and "It is interesting to note" can be added in sentences when it should be pointed out or if it is interesting to note.
13. " Don't inflate what needs no inflating: "with the possible exception of" (except), "due to the fact that" (because), "he totally lacked the ability to" (he couldn't), "until such time as" (until), "for the purpose of" (for)."
14. "Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it's beautiful?"

These are my summary notes on 'Clutter' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.

Image: Art Supplies Clutter on Wooden Table in Art Studio, Marshall Arts Gallery, Memphis, United States

                Image source: Khara Woods kharaoke, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons