Use Anglo-Saxon

I have come to understand that the first step in revision is to make writing as concise as possible. Once the writing is concise, it becomes a lot easier for writers to see other problems, beginning with content, connections and logic, organization, clarity, and even correctness. 

Most writing could stand to be made more concise. Certainly concise writing is more economical, both monetarily and in efficiency. The problem, as I’ve stated before, is that most of us have been trained to make our writing as long as we can, to sound more educated, to meet page limits, to satisfy requirements that should never have been imposed in the first place. So where do we begin?

(Warning: a lot of what follows is over-simplified. If you want the whole story, look it up.)

I’ve found six ways to make writing more concise. The first is to use Anglo-Saxon instead of Norman French.

You probably know that English is a language derived from a number of root languages. English is notorious for stealing (or inventing) words and grammar from other languages when people cannot find a way to say what they want. 

To clarify, a little history is in order. Two of the root languages of English are Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. About a thousand years ago, William of Normandy decided he wanted to become king of England, so he invaded and defeated the Anglo-Saxon king Harald II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. From that time, Norman French began to influence the English language in ways we still see today, usually in legal phrasings. The phrase “last will and testament” combines both Anglo-Saxon vocabulary and Norman French. “Will” is the Anglo-Saxon; “testament” is the Norman French.

So how does this affect writing? Most Norman French words tend to be multi-syllabic. If you remember the Fog Index, the formula calls any word three syllables or more a hard word. So using words with a Norman French derivation means using more hard words.

At this point, everyone is yawning and saying ok, so what?

Try this: Fornicate is the Norman French. What’s the Anglo-Saxon? I’ll give you a hint. It is four letters long and begins with an F.

Defecate is the Norman French. What’s the Anglo-Saxon? It’s another four letter word and begins with an S.

Urinate is the Norman French. I’ll leave you to figure out the Anglo-Saxon.

This often leaves my foreign students bewildered. So it’s all right to use swear words in writing? No, it is not all right. The point is that Anglo-Saxon packs a punch that Norman French does not. Anglo-Saxon also tends to be shorter. Four letters as opposed to three syllables? Take the short word.

Let’s look at some other examples:

Utilize—try use instead.

Accomplish—do.

Facilitate—ease.

Application—use (the noun in this case, not the verb).

Represent—is.

Demonstrate—show.

Modification—change.

Construct—make.

Conjecture—guess.

Assistance—help.

Am I saying you can never use long words? No, emphatically not. In many cases, those long words have a shade of meaning the shorter ones do not have. But when your writing requires that you use vocabulary from your own field (aka jargon, and jargon is usually hard words), why make the reader work to understand words that don’t have to be hard? Basically, if you have a choice between a long word and a short one, go for the short one.

If you want to keep your writing short and make it emphatic, go for Anglo-Saxon.