Few things are more obnoxious than meaningless fluff and unnecessary jargon in writing. Using too many words is a bad thing. Using the wrong word is a bad thing. Using too many words, most of which are wrong, to say little? Well, that’s the worst thing.

Meet Gregory Pence, bioethics professor at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and one of my new heroes. Dr. Pence wrote a charmingly-Steynian piece that skewers his students’ propensity for the useless.

In “Let’s Think Outside The Box of Bad Clichés,” Pence says:

Sloppy writing leads to sloppy thinking, which is why I have a ‘bone of contention’ with trite phrases.

That’s backwards - sloppy thinking leads to sloppy writing - but they do feed each other. Sloppy results come from sloppy processes; sloppy results that masquerade as acceptable lead to even sloppier processes the next time. Regardless of the ebb and flow of this dynamic, the end result is the same: poorly written pieces that say little [or take too much time to say little]. I’m interested.

Dr. Pence was grading blue books when he started to catalog his students’ cliches:

When I grade written work by students, one of the phrases I hate most is “It goes without saying,” in response to which I scribble on their essays, “Then why write it?” Another favorite of undergraduates is “It’s not for me to say,” to which I jot in their blue books, “Then why continue writing?”

I also despise the phrase “Who can say?” to which I reply, “You! That’s who! That’s the point of writing an essay!”

Absolutely - I used to cross out versions of “I think” and “I believe” and write in the margin, “This is your paper - of course you believe it.” Taking out this mush creates a more powerful delivery for an essay. Sometimes students not only think or believe, they do it twice without realizing it:

Sometimes the clichés are simply redundant, as when my students write of a “mass exodus.” Can there be a “small” exodus? “Exodus” implies a mass of people.

Pence’s “exodus” analysis is a perfect example of why it’s important to know exactly what words mean - and what they don’t mean. Remember, as Twain said, “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

Other times the expressions defy the rules of logic. A student in a philosophy class writes that philosophy “bores me to tears.” But if something brings him to tears, it’s certainly not boring.

Pence is off on this one. “Bores me to tears” implies that something is so boring that it grieves or upsets one. Boredom so intense that it elicits such a reaction isn’t necessarily the opposite of boring. And even if it is, the reaction “to tears” is a result of the previous state of boredom; they aren’t related. This is a minor detail because, as Dr. Pence agrees, the phrase is largely useless.

I also fear that most students don’t know what they are saying when they write that a question “boggles the mind.” Does every problem in bioethics really boggle the mind? What does this mean?

It doesn’t mean anything. I hope for the sake of Dr. Pence’s sanity that his students don’t discover Science Geek’s Jargon Generator - it’ll just get worse.

All of us repeat trite expressions without thinking. My TV weatherman sometimes says, “It’s raining cats and dogs.” Should I call the Humane Society? Where did this silly expression come from?

I thought most people knew this one - apparently not. There’s no definitive origin of which I’m aware, but they all go something like this, says Michael Quinion:

The most common one says that in olden times, homes had thatched roofs in which domestic animals such as cats and dogs would like to hide. In heavy rain, the animals would either be washed out of the thatch, or rapidly abandon it for better shelter, so it would seem to be raining cats and dogs.

I’m convinced. And even though imprecision is a sin, we do need some playfulness in language. Wouldn’t it be hideously boring if there wasn’t?

Another common mistake involves “literally.” I often hear people on election night say, “He literally won by a landslide.” If so, should geologists help us understand how?

Oh, Pence. You really stuck the pin in the party hog with that one. There are only two misapplied words that irk me more than an ill-advised “literally.” [One is “could care less,” to which I respond, “Then you ought to.” See DWT’s treatment of caring less. Can you guess the other?] There is absolutely no excuse for using “literally” incorrectly, though the irony is wonderfully amusing depending on the circumstances.

Pence gives some examples from the business world and academic textbooks. He points out that since textbooks and teachers use these phrases, we shouldn’t be surprised when students do. Doesn’t that resonate in the education community? [Hint: If you put your ear to the screen, you can hear faintly an administrator demanding a list of “measured learning outcomes” from a kindergarten teacher.]

He closes appropriately:

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, I’d like to leave no stone unturned in grinding such writing to a halt, saving each and every student’s essay in the nick of time. But I have a sneaking suspicion that, from time immemorial, that has been an errand of mercy and easier said than done.

I beg you to join us in our undying vigilance. And in the meantime, be pithy.

UPDATE at 10.13pm, 08.11.07:

Someone asked why I used the word “skewer” in the headline. Pence brought together several common errors for the sake of analysis. He literally skewered the mistakes and then roasted them!

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