![]() ![]() That means that legal writers shouldn’t do this: Varying those can cause problems: “If we use the word ‘negligence’ in one paragraph and ‘fault’ in the next, the reader will wonder if we are talking about the same thing or something different.” So say Harold and John Warnock, a father-son pair of lawyers. ![]() The defendant’s manager had seen ice on the floor near the soda machine and had asked other employees to monitor the floor there so that water did not accumulate.īesides the guidance on word repetition generally, legal writers should remember that legal writing has terms of art, standard terminology, and stock phrases.How? There are other tools, but we can often avoid repetition and inelegant variation by using pronouns carefully and by eliding understood concepts: So let’s rewrite our example to avoid needless repetition but also to avoid inelegant variation. Today, the writing expert Bryan Garner gives it a more apt name: “inelegant variation,” and he doesn’t like it either: “Variety for variety’s sake can confuse readers.” And as to legal writing, Garner qualifies the advice: “One should not repeat a word in the same sentence if it can be felicitously avoided.” Fowler coined the phrase “elegant variation” for this writing flaw and said, “The fatal influence is the advice given to young writers never to use the same word twice in a sentence―or within 20 lines or other limit.… There are few literary faults so widely prevalent ….” The defendant’s manager had seen ice on the floor near the soda machine and had asked other employees to monitor the floor in front of the soft-drink dispenser so that water did not accumulate near the carbonated-beverage appliance.īetter? That’s an example of what the writing expert Patricia O’Conner calls “Slender Yellow Fruit Syndrome,” as in “Freddie was offered an apple and a banana, and he chose the slender yellow fruit.” īetter writing advice would be to avoid word repetition without resorting to “elegant variation,” the practice of using a synonym or near-synonym or creating your own, made-up synonym (slender yellow fruit).The word repetition there is truly, fingernail-scrapingly awkward. The defendant’s manager had seen ice on the floor near the soda machine and had asked other employees to monitor the floor in front of the soda machine so that water did not accumulate near the soda machine. ![]() Here’s typical advice from Ben Yagoda, a professor of English and journalism: “Word repetition is a telltale sign of awkward, non-mindful writing.… sounds like a fingernail on the blackboard.” This is what he’s talking about: It’s common writing advice to avoid repeating a word in the same sentence or the same paragraph. Avoiding word repetition-wisely My books: Legal Writing Nerd: Be One, Plain Legal Writing: Do It. ![]()
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