The real-life word cops: Feds hoping to clarify language.

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The real-life word cops: Feds hoping to clarify language.

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021 453

Found in today’s Los Angeles Times. Who knew? Certainly not I. Apparently there is something called the Plain Writing Act and it requires government agencies to assure government-bureaucrat-ese is converted into a form understandable by mere mortals.

The campaign for speech clarity dates from the Clinton administration and the cause of plain speech in government was taken up by then-Vice President Al Gore. Gore would show up at various agencies to bestow an award for the most improved writing.

Then in 2010, it was given the force of law. Progress has been made, according to The Times. But, as you can see in the sign above, an ongoing effort is required. That sign won the group’s annual WTF Award — Work That Failed.

Check out the article on the Center for Plain Language here.

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

Harlan Ellison

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

Gloria Steinem

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault