Really Stupid Words, Chapter 7

American English is a rich language. It changes and evolves, and words and usages come and go. Some clarify, improve, enhance, and enrich.

But some are just plain stupid, and ought to be replaced by more meaningful language. Or, left unsaid altogether.

“We control our own destiny,” for example.

You hear people spout this inane phrase all the time. It gets thrown around as if it actually means something, rather than positing the impossible.

Destiny, by its very nature, is something that cannot be controlled. It’s usually defined as something like, “the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events,” or “events that will necessarily happen.” Note the words “predetermined,” “inevitable,” “irresistible,” and “necessarily.” In other words, uncontrollable.

So, no matter how much you might like to think so, or how hard you try, you cannot control your own destiny.

(Assuming, that is, that “destiny” even exists. But that’s another story.)

Lies They Tell Writers, Part 16: Just Say It.

Some time ago, I said in one of these screeds that in good writing “what” you say is important, but “how” you say it is every bit as—if not more—important.

That prompted a comment from a friend, fellow writer, and former teacher that, to his way of thinking, the two are inseparable. I guess we are of different minds. Here’s an explanation. In some of the workshops I teach I use this example to demonstrate:

“In 1776, our founding fathers, desiring freedom and equality for all, created the American nation.”

That sentence is a fairly good, if simplistic, explanation of the birth of our country. It says what it needs to say and does so in a straightforward manner without a lot of foofaraw.

But, the same thought, the same idea, the same “what,” in the hands of a better writer comes out this way:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

That writer was, of course, Abraham Lincoln, opening the lid on his immortal Gettysburg Address. And while my line captured the “what” of it equally well, it will never be immortal.

All because Mr. Lincoln didn’t just say it—he paid more attention to the “how” of saying it.

(If you look hard enough, you’ll see Honest Abe circled in the 1863 photo, below, from the Gettysburg dedication ceremony.)