LANGUAGE HUMOR AT ITS FINEST

Nine Easy Steps to Longer Sentences
By Kathy McGinty

Are you tired of short, direct, and simple sentences that seem to take forever to fill up a page? Are you paid by the word? In either case you can benefit by increasing the number of words in your sentences and the bulk of your writing. And it’s easy if you just follow nine simple steps, many of which you may already know and practice.

To show how easily you can apply these steps, I’ll start with the following ludicrously short and simple sentence and increase its verbiage step by step:

“More night jobs would keep youths off the streets.”

Step 1: Begin to lengthen your statement by referring to studies, even if you're not aware of any studies. After all, who really cares? And if anyone challenges you, you can protect yourself by weaseling (see Step 5).

“Studies have found that more night jobs would keep youths off the streets.”

Step 2: Replace simple words like “more,” “jobs,” “night,” “youths,” and “streets” with multiple syllable words of Latin or Greek origin.

“Studies have found that additional nocturnal employment would keep adolescents off thoroughfares.”

Step 3: Use sophisticated verbs, the vaguer the better. The verb “found” is much too clear and simple, whereas “indicate,” “develop,” and “identify” are excellent multi-purpose verbs with so many meanings that you can use them in almost any context to mean almost anything. What precisely does “indicate” mean, anyway? If you use “identify” or “indicate,” you can further lengthen your sentence by attaching “the fact that” to it.

“Studies have identified the fact that additional nocturnal employment would keep adolescents off thoroughfares.

Step 4: Rely on such adjectives as “available,” “applicable,” and “appropriate” to lengthen sentences without changing or adding any meaning. If possible, use “various,” one of the most meaningless of all the meaningless modifiers.

“Various available applicable studies have identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment would keep adolescents off thoroughfares.”

Step 5: Use weasel words as often as possible. “A number of” is particularly useful because it can refer to any number at all: -9, 4.78, 0, 5 billion, you name it. (For more effective weaseling, replace “wills” and “woulds” with “cans” and “coulds.”)

“A number of various available applicable studies have generally identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment could usually keep adolescents off thoroughfares.”

Step 6: Sprinkle your sentences with classic redundancies.

“A number of various available applicable studies have generally identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment could usually keep juvenile adolescents off thoroughfares.”

Step 7: Add meaningless “it is” and “there is”/ “there are” expressions, not only to lengthen your sentences but also to give them a scholarly ring.

“There is no escaping the fact that it is considered very important to note that a number of various available applicable studies have generally identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment could usually keep juvenile adolescents off thoroughfares.

Step 8: For the precision that all good writing deserves, use legalisms—the more redundant, the better.

“There is no escaping the fact that it is considered very important to note that a number of various available applicable studies have generally identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment could usually keep juvenile adolescents off thoroughfares, including but not limited to the time prior to midnight on weeknights and/or 2 a.m. on weekends.”

Step 9: Use foreign words and phrases to lengthen and enliven your sentences. Especially apt are Latinisms and other obscurities whose meanings have long been forgotten if they were ever known.

“There is no escaping the fact that it is considered very important to note that a number of various available applicable studies ipso facto have generally identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment could usually keep juvenile adolescents off thoroughfares during the night hours, including but not limited to the time prior to midnight on weeknights and/or 2 a.m. on weekends.”

So there you have it. Following these nine steps, I’ve managed in no time to increase the number of words in my sentence nearly seven fold, well above the level of incomprehensibility. And best of all, I’ve accomplished this feat with little or no change in meaning.

—From PlainLanguage.gov

The PlainLanguage.gov website was set up in 1994 and is being maintained by the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN), a group of federal employees from many different agencies and specialties in the United States. It advocates clarity in government communication.

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