The aspect of language use that
is most worth changing is the clarity and style of written prose. Expository
writing requires language to express far more complex trains of thought
than it was biologically designed to do. Inconsistencies caused by limitations
of short-term memory and planning, unnoticed in conversation, are not as
tolerable when preserved on a page that is to be perused more leisurely.
Also, unlike a conversational partner, a reader will rarely share enough
background assumptions to interpolate all the missing premises that make
language comprehensible. Overcoming one's natural egocentrism and trying
to anticipate the knowledge state of a generic reader at every stage of
the exposition is one of the most important tasks in writing well. All
this makes writing a difficult craft that must be mastered through practice,
instruction, feedback, and—probably most important—intensive exposure to
good examples. There are excellent manuals of composition that discuss
these and other skills with great wisdom, like Strunk and White's The
Elements of Style and Williams's Style:
Toward Clarity and Grace. What is most relevant to my point is
how removed their practical advice is from the trivia of split infinitives
and slang. For example, a banal but universally acknowledged key to good
writing is to revise extensively. Good writers go through anywhere from
two to twenty drafts before releasing a paper. Anyone who does not appreciate
this necessity is going to be a bad writer. Image a Jeremiah exclaiming,
"Our language today is threatened by an insidious enemy: the youth are
not revising their drafts enough times." Kind of takes the fun out, doesn't
it? It's not something that can be blamed on television, rock music, shopping,
mall culture, overpaid athletes, or any of the other signs of the decay
of civilization. But if it's clear writing that we want, this is the kind
of homely remedy that is called for. [p. 401]