Metaphorically speaking
In ‘The Complete Plain Words’, Ernest Gowers says that metaphors tend to be used indiscriminately and soon get stale “but not before they have elbowed out words perhaps more commonplace but with meanings more precise”.
I have been editing work about communications this week – probably written by marketing professionals or consultants of some sort – and the copy is full of metaphors.
It is aimed at people who work in government – civil servants and others – to try and help them improve their communications. This is probably why, after a day of wading through ‘raised games’ and ‘silos’, I found myself turning to Gowers just to – how can I put it? ‘Touch base’? Or for some ‘hand holding’?
That’s the problem with editing. You leave college with all these high ideals about the quality of good writing. You take an interest in words, subscribe to ‘word of the day’, read beautiful sentences in life-changing literature.
Then you find yourself editing a load of guff about stepping up to the marcomms plate.
Gowers was invited by the Treasury to write ‘The Complete Plain Words’ which was first published in 1948. I think the intention was to get the civil service use plain English. Clearly it didn’t work and now, more than 60 years later I earn my living by rewriting sentences like:
“All too often these are ‘motherhood and apple pie’ statements or are expressed in meaningless jargon.”
What hope do we have?
