Poor writing

I don’t claim to be an excellent writer and I rarely write anything that demands to be edited to a fine luster. That said, I do think I have a good critical eye for theoretical argument and in a email that i recived on Friday morning this fragment jumped out at me:

“…the involvement of thought with plans is manifestly obvious.”

It’s not important what the context of the frament is, whether or not you know what the author is talking about, or whether it’s true. I have a problem with the word “involvement” and with the phrase “manifestly obvious”.

First of all, when you say “a is involved with b” you are saying almost nothing at all, especially when you are talking about a biological system like the brain. Practically everything in the brain is involved with everything else, it’s just a stupidly weak statement.

Second, “manifestly obvious” is manifestly redunant. Manifest means obvious, but carries some semantic baggage. It implies something seen, something real. It calls to mind sailors logs. Either he means manifest, or he means obvious.

And any use of the word “obvious” in corporate writing is likely dubious anyway. If something is in fact obvious, it needn’t be said. If it needs to be said, it’s likely not obvious. And if you are feeling the urge to label something obvious, it’s likely you are just lamely trying to get away without substantiating something which should be substantiated. It’s a red flag, and you ought to be damn sure you have a reason for raising it.

So that’s my bitching for the moment. Of course, if you poke through my ideas I’m sure you’ll find many examples of equally poor usage on my own for example the last three posts are full of errors. That is what i get for not first writing my comment in mircosoft word before posting it.