I Did Not Say That, Part 10: Formal Style

"I write like I talk, so I want to improve my writing style."

Whenever I hear someone making this comment, I respond, "Why change? You speak respectfully, clearly, and concisely. I understand you perfectly." Wow, does that comment stun them.

What's so bad about writing like you talk?

Assuming you are articulate and speaking at your professional best, as you would during a public course in which you are a participant, then you should strive to write with a similar style. When hanging out with old friends at a bar, you might say, "Yo, man, like I ain't feeling it when I'm rapping, and my scribing is all jive." But among professional peers, you would likely to say something like, "I tend to take a long time to get to the point when I'm speaking, and my writing is even worse." That's formal enough in our world today.

Do you always want a formal style?

You might say, "I need to write more formally." Fair enough. But if you ever open an email with "Hello Hal," "Hi Hilda," "Good day Gloria," or "Dear Dan," you are not writing formally. In fact, I hesitate to say, "Dear Dr. Davis" or "Dear Ms. Miller" is appropriately formal today because of preferred pronouns emerging from the gender identification movement. These days, a more gender-neutral "Dear David Davis" or "Dear Millie Miller" seems more the fashion. Even dropping Dear seems a better fit. (Sorry, old timers: things change.) 

So if you see me hedging when you say, "I always want to write formally," it's because I'm trying to find a nice way to say, "No, you don't."

I Did Not Say That, Part 9: Avoiding "I Can't"

Most of my clients are in the service business. Serving others concerns what you can do, not what you cannot do. For this obvious reason, I admonish people to avoid defaulting to expressions such as I cannot, We are unable to, My team finds it impossible to, and Our company is not in a position to—all meaning just about the same thing: we are recalcitrant, indolent, and intractable.

So how do we get around saying and writing I can't, especially to the people we owe our living to? By saying its opposite: I can:

• Instead of writing the repellent "I can't help you next week," write "I can help you today." 
• Avoid saying the negative "We are unable to complete this project without additional staff and funding," by saying "We are able to complete this project with additional staff and funding." 
• Rather than communicate "My team finds it impossible to complete this proposal on time," prefer "My team needs another day to complete this proposal." 
• Drop "Our company is not in a position to provide guidance in this area" in favor of "Our company recommends expert consultant Paul Jefferson for guidance in this area."

I am not saying we should never use expressions like I can't, but I am saying that we should default to positives. If your clients insist you help them next week after you've written, "I can help you today," then explain: "I'll be on my honeymoon next week" or whatever your reason. If they still insist, then they're not getting the message, although reasonable people will. They have given you no choice but to write the negative "I am unavailable next week." But remember to make the positive I can your default.

I Did Not Say That, Part 8: Apologizing

Here's another one from the I-Never-Told-You-That files. I believe we should not apologize for matters beyond our control. Let's say I lost electrical power for an extended period, as did most people from the Caribbean to northeastern Canada in October 2012. I would explain the reason, but not apologize, for not getting back to you sooner. People have incorrectly taken this position to mean "don't apologize." 

Not true. I'm a big believer in apologizing for something we could have controlled, say an unintended but unwelcomed comment (we could have chosen different words), a late appearance (we could have begun our commute earlier), a late response (we could have communicated sooner), or a mistake (we could have been more careful). In fact, I urge people in my classes to apologize unconditionally when an apology is due. So what does an unconditional apology look like? 

Let's start with what an unconditional apology does not look like:

• "I'm sorry, but ..." (Never follow an apology with a justification for a misdeed.
• "I'm sorry if you think ..." (I think? How dare you!)

An unconditional apology should have five parts, all beginning with the letter A:

• Assertion –  The precise reason for your apology. ("I'm sorry I kept you waiting for five minutes before beginning the virtual meeting.")
• Acknowledgment –  An explanation of why the offended party deserved better treatment. ("I know how important it was for all of us to be on time for the meeting.")
• Assurance –  A promise to do better next time ("If I know I'm running late in the future, I'll text you to begin the meeting without me before I take an interrupting phone call.")
• Adjustment – An act or gesture compensating the offended party. ("As promised, I took your turn to write the attached meeting review.")
• Appreciation – An expression of gratitude for your relationship with the offended party. ("You manage meetings masterfully, so I look forward to the next one you run.")  

Using the five A's of an apology will improve your relationships as a colleague, teammate, friend, sibling, parent, child, or relative. And those apologies will be more real when they are due.

I Did Not Say That, Part 7: Assertiveness and Aggressiveness

In teaching tone, I make a point of distinguishing between assertiveness and aggressiveness. This is no small point, as some of us tend to use these words interchangeably, and each word has nuanced detonations (literal meanings) and connotations (inferred meanings). The root of both words is Latin: assertive from assertus, meaning defended or claimed, and aggressive from aggressus, meaning attack. Regardless of their roots, we are familiar with sentences such as these:

• Val could not be more assertive about her preferred political candidate. (Val seems single-mindedly certain about her opinion, which is not necessarily bad.)
• Xavier never was assertive about compliance with the policy until he believed his staff began taking too many liberties with it. (Xavier’s newfound assertiveness is edging toward running roughshod about the policy, which may border on stubbornness.)   
• Yu said he quit his job because of his manager’s aggressiveness. (Here we take aggressiveness to mean belligerence, which we do well to avoid, especially in the workplace.)  
• Zoey's aggressiveness on the court helps her win most tennis tournaments she enters. (In this case, aggressiveness suggests wanting to win at all costs.)

Writing assertively (authoritatively confident and bold) depends on the point you are trying to make, the audience you are addressing, and the emotional climate. In my line of work as a writing consultant, I write assertively in rare cases, usually when my clients insist on no wiggle room from this professional wiggler. Writing aggressively (belligerently), on the other hand, is a no-no. Who am I to be confrontational with the people who pay for my service? Sorry to be so assertive here, but I’m sure you get my point.

Now here’s the dig: Since I say some of us may use assertive and aggressive interchangeably, myself not included, some people may wrongly believe that I am encouraging an aggressive tone. Never. I don’t care if we want our favorite athlete to be aggressive in competition. The office, whether actual or virtual, is not a sport. Respecting people’s feelings is part of our job, whether we like it or not. On second thought, we should like respecting other people’s feelings.  If you are ever told your writing tone is aggressive, you must do two things: apologize and change. I can’t be more assertive than that.

I Did Not Say That, Part 6: Beginning a Sentence with "But"

You can begin a sentence with but—no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I discussed this point in a 2018 post and readdress the issue here with examples from writers far better than most of us who began a sentence with the conjunction.

"But with defeat comes the need to talk, to explain, which presented problems for a fiction writer." Joseph Blotner, Faulkner: A Biography, Volume 1 (1974), page 691

"But it doesn't matter with me now." Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I See the Promised Land" 1968 speech, in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writing and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1986), page 286 

"But in 1861 these achievements still lay in the future." James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988), page 321

"But the atmosphere of crisis that has been generated by the confusion among some of the white Americans who control the 'education establishment' is cause not only for alarm but for red alert and hot pursuit." Albert Murray, The Omni-Americans in Albert Murray: Collected Essays & Memoirs (1970), page 177

"But there's a problem, which has more to do with space than race: The longer form does not lend itself to headlines." William Safire, Watching My Language: Adventures in the Word Trade (1997), page 110

These five examples are from five different stylists: a biographer, a social activist, a historian, a critic, and a rhetorician/grammarian. I can offer many more examples of accomplished writers from other fields using but at the beginning of a sentence with their editors' approval. The point of raising this issue is not to encourage starting sentences with but. Rather, I want to reinforce the point that rhetorical rules are usually arbitrary, especially when cited by writing teachers who rarely write. True, overusing but to lead off a sentence may suggest a weak writing style. But the writer's goal is to employ a variety of sentence beginnings, middles, and endings. How can we create this effect without turning to all options available to us?

I Did Not Say That, Part 5: Beginning a Sentence with "Because"

Haven't so many of us been taught not to begin a sentence with because? That advice from our elementary school teachers is incorrect, but I understand why they gave it. They wanted us to avoid writing sentence fragments, like the one in the answer below:

Question: Why did the U.S. Civil War begin?  

Answer: Because of slavery.

Our teachers reasonably expected us to write complete sentences, so they should have accepted an answer that read, "Because of slavery, the U.S. Civil War began." 

Those who refuse to surrender their grade school teachers' admonishment about never beginning a sentence with because will say, "You should use since instead, as in, 'Since there was slavery, the U.S. Civil War began.'"

Well, doesn't because mean since?

Beware of catch-all grammatical or rhetorical rules, those edicts from bogus language authorities that begin with never or always: "Never begin a sentence with because" or "Always use a comma to separate an introductory word, phrase, or clause from the subject of the sentence." Such maxims will sooner or later let you down. Language is too rich, flexible, and dynamic to be subjected to intractable tips.

While I do say it's all right to begin a sentence with because, I add to that advice a suggestion from Aristotle, "In all things moderation." Do not overdo it.

I Did Not Say That, Part 4: Fragments

A fragment is not a complete sentence and, therefore, a grammatical error because it lacks a subject, a predicate, or both. A subject and a predicate are both necessary to form a standard sentence. Here are examples of a correct sentence followed by three incorrect fragments:

Standard sentence: When Henry arrives, the meeting will begin.   

Fragment, lacking subject: When Henry arrives, will begin.

Fragment, lacking predicate: When Henry arrives, the meeting.

Fragment, lacking subject and predicate: When Henry arrives.

Although we learned in school not to write fragments and our managers admonish us to write complete sentences, excellent writers frequently write them. Here is an example of breaking the standard sentence rule by the brilliant writer, Joan Didion, in her 2005 book The Year of Magical Thinking (page 128): 

I  remember learning at UCA the names of many tests and scales. The Kimura Box Test. The Two-Point Discrimination Test. The Glasgow Coma Scale, the Glasgow Outcome Scale.

The first sentence is fine, the next two are fragments and the last is a comma splice, also a nonstandard sentence we have been taught to avoid. So why do writers as great as Didion and their editors allow these fragments? For many reasons, including impact, rhythm, and variety. (The previous sentence is a fragment!) I do not tell people to never write them, but to use them only when their best judgment tells them a fragment works better than a complete sentence. If you've ever written in an email Thanks instead of I thank you, or Received instead of I received your attachment, or Done instead of We have completed the task, then you are writing fragments that most reasonable readers would say are preferable to their longer, correct counterparts.

While a carefully considered fragment may have its place in professional writing for the sake of brevity, we should avoid writing fragments like these:

Opening fragment: In response to your inquiry. (Prefer I am responding to your inquiry.)

Mid-message fragment: Consequently, falling behind schedule. (Prefer Consequently, the project is falling behind schedule.) 

Closing fragment: Questions, 1-732-718-3361. (Prefer If you have questions, call 1-732-718-3361.)

If you are not sure of whether to write a sentence or a fragment, then write a sentence. That's what I said.