Redundant language — fluff, or cultural bridge?

Coaching colleagues with their writing, I often spot extra words or phrases that can be cut. After cutting, the text reads better. I’m in good company I guess: every book on good work writing, back to Strunk and White and beyond, has told readers to cut out the fluff. As White put it, to “omit needless words”.

What causes fluffy writing?

What is it that makes writing over-wordy? You might think it’s because people write like they speak. Some lazy conversational habit that spills onto the page and needs mopping up. But that is not the cause.

We get taught at an early age that writing is something special, not the natural language we’re used to but something that brings judgement. In elementary school, we might get at most two years of freedom, two years to write stories as we see them and say them, before being told to produce Creative Writing. We get points in Creative Writing for Being Descriptive, and so we obediently Describe.

For example, telling your parents a story about a small house is fine, but a teacher won’t be happy with you writing just that. The topic is fine but you can’t write “small house” or even “very small house” to get the good marks. You need to work harder: perhaps it’s a “cosy, minute cottage, dwarfed by the size of the huge mansion casting a large shadow over its tiny walls”.

Redundant and over-the-top though it is, this kind of writing pleases some teachers — they can easily check off learning objectives!

(Of course you can get good marks for something expressive and not so redundant — my daughter might try something like “the mansion’s shadow swallowed the cottage” — points for personification there!)

Our sense of the special world of writing continues into adult work life, and grows more strained. We must produce educated written English that conversationally (yet never unprofessionally) conveys our corporate passion about everything we do. No wonder we tie our words in knots.

Every company is on a mission, and no matter how simple and normal your product, your mission must be grand. A small outsourced coding company needs to be:

None dare to just say “We write software.”

Could a company get away with such a plain and simple expression, though? It’s easy to mock that grandiose corporate language, but what if it’s the only way that a small company felt it could be taken seriously? (Especially if, like so many valid businesses, it doesn’t offer an utterly unique product, but rather a reliable, convenient, or cost-effective one?)

What’s the social function of corporate fluffy language?

As Mark Baker commented on an earlier version of this post, “The little software company with the pompous mission statement is trying to demonstrate that it knows how big, reliable software companies communicate.”

Beyond the purely factual aspect of communication, language has a social function too. That mission statement might reassure the cautious reader that the company belongs in their space, and they won’t be criticised for working with it.

Baker went on to say, “This is not at all to say that they always do it well or that there is never anything to cut, but it is also true that many pieces of writing fail because they only communicate in the fact channel.”

So what should we do, for this kind of writing? A balance is best. You can fit in a domain without sounding as if you are trying too hard, and without burying your true message. If that involves a little redundant language, that’s no terrible thing. Better than cutting out all but the barest facts, pleasing the grammar gods but losing the trust of your audience.

What other social functions does “redundant” writing perform?

Work life isn’t just about telling people to do stuff, and them confirming they’ve recieved the order.

Imagine that a superior manager from another department has asked for something that you can’t do. How do you start your answer? You might say “We can’t do that. We don’t have time.” Or you might say “We can’t really do that right now, because prior customer requests are taking up all our time at the moment.”

Pretty much the same meaning. More redundancy. But also more consideration of how that manager will receive the message.

You might think that such diplomatic language doesn’t suit western communication culture. Not American communication anyway, proud of its directness and simplicity. Is that even a culture? Isn’t it just normality?

In a Twitter thread on culture differences, Patrick Collins wrote:

American communication is often said to be “low-context”. Where messages state things clearly and don’t need much interpretation. But there are many subtleties to getting it right. The more you operate in that culture, the more complexity you see, and the better you get at communicating. So-called redundant language can help there, just as it does in the conventionally high-context cultures in Asia and southern Europe.

Social functions aside, sometimes redundant language gets across our points more clearly to various audiences.

When does redundant writing clarify factual meaning?

Sometimes an extra word makes all the difference. It can help non-native speakers of the language avoid misunderstandings. It can help everyone avoid misunderstandings. And, more than basic communication, it can change meaning subtly. So the “redundant” word may not be a waste at all.

Redundancy helps people with different first languages communicate

English, like many languages, has endings for time. Like -ed for things that happened in the past, and -ing for things still happening.

But Chinese languages signify time differently*. That means that native English speakers and native Chinese speakers sometimes misunderstand each other. It is relatively easy to fix in conversation though, since it usually becomes clear when people are talking about different times. (“You made a tea?” “Yes.” “Where is it?” “Oh, I will make a tea”.)

In writing, it’s harder to pick up these differences.

If you write “I had seen him”, you are describing a complex aspect of time. It means that at the time of the thing you’re talking about (which was in the past), you had already seen the person.

So for a native speaker of Chinese, it may be easier to understand this idea with more words: “By the time of the incident, I had already seen him”. The bolded words clarify the timeframe.

It’s not just Chinese: speakers of other languages too may understand more with a bit of redundancy. For example:

Although “enough” often means roughly the same as “sufficient”, native speakers of Latin languages will understand “sufficient” more easily, while those of Germanic languages will recognize “enough”. What seems like a wasted word could save the meaning.

Redundancy helps messages survive the journey

Even for native speakers, sometimes an extra word can help them understand. Clear, precise writing doesn’t guarantee that a reader understands your meaning clearly and precisely. Your audience actually re-interpret as they read, based on their own context and experience. But even assuming that you share a context with your audience, they often skip and miss information. (See Skim-Reading Less Helps Our Teams and Our Time.)

Although human language actually isn’t “transmitting messages” (see next month’s post), we can borrow a useful idea from digital information systems.

Many digital messages contain an extra piece of information, a “checksum”. That is “a sequence of numbers and letters used to check data for errors”. Errors can happen when data is lost or there is noise of various kinds. So with a little redundant information, a computer system can make sure it is getting the message as transmitted, and ask for it to be sent again if needed.

So, including some redundant words can help busy or less fluent readers get your message. How much redundancy? There’s no formula. This isn’t computers. It’s humans, so you have to judge how much rephrasing of an idea is too much.

Sometimes, though, a word that picky grammarians call “redundant” is not so at all — it creates new meaning.

Redundancy adds rich meaning

I remember one writing guide saying that the phrase “violent storm” had a redundant word, because all storms are violent. But for me, the word “violent” makes the storm more vivid. It signifies also a stronger storm than the regular kind. Redundancy can emphasise meaning.

How much stronger is a “violent” storm? That would depend on the context of the writer and their audience. A violent storm in Taiwan is likely to be stronger than a violent storm in the middle of England, because storms in Taiwan are often more dramatic to start with.

But so-called redundant words still give us more colors to paint with. I remember Typhoon Mindulle in Central Taiwan — a violent typhoon indeed. Other typhoons weren’t so bad — for most people just a day off work.

Should you worry about redundant writing?

Each word takes time to process. When people rush and skip so much, you still don’t want to waste words. So you should worry about redundancy in a particular way, at a particular phase of writing:

1. Don’t worry about it when you’re drafting. Drafting is a time to “speak onto the page”. Worrying about technical features then can make for stiff writing that’s hard to rescue.
   

2. When you’ve had a break and you’re back to polishing your writing, be aware of repetition, or strings of words that seem to say the same thing as each other. How to notice redundant words and phrases? One of the best ways is reading aloud. See the tips at the end of “Drop grammar rules and trust your tongue”.
   

3. Think about your audience, and how they’ll receive your message. Do the extra words help, or do they waste time? Do they strengthen your meaning, or distract the reader?

Always come back to the reason you’re writing, and the context of the reader. Some words are redundant, others undant — ripples circling your point.