6. • Smith related that upon his return
to the aforementioned residence, he
made the observation that the
forwardmost point of entry was
unsecured.
• Smith said the front door was
unlocked when he got home.
@edeckers
7. Statistician: Each Geographical Statistical Output
(GSO)depicts an enumeration district.
Manager: Do you mean ‘each map’?
Statistician: No. We cannot call it a map because each
GSO also contains a table.
Manager: OK. It’s a map with a table.
— PlainLanguage.gov
@edeckers
10. Never use jargon
words like
reconceptualize,
demassification,
attitudinally,
judgmentally.
They are hallmarks
of a pretentious ass.
— David Ogilvy@edeckers
11. “We will leverage end user learnings
on a going forward basis.”
“We'll use what you learned
from now on.”
@edeckers
12. “We have created a frictionless
user onboarding experience.”
“Signing up is easy.”
@edeckers
16. If proper usage gets
in the way,
it may have to go.
I can’t allow what
we learned in
English composition
to disrupt the
sound and rhythm
of the narrative.
— Elmore Leonard
@edeckers
20. “If a writer of prose knows enough
about what he is writing about,
he may omit things that he knows. . .
A writer who omits things because
he does not know them only makes
hollow places in his writing. ”
— Ernest Hemingway
@edeckers
21. “The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to
only one-eighth of it being above water.”
@edeckers
22. “The dignity of movement of an iceberg
is due to only one-eighth of (the iceberg)
being above (the) water(’s surface),
(and the other seven-eighths of it being
below the water’s surface).”
“The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due
to only one-eighth of it being above water.”
@edeckers
24. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert
when the drugs began to take hold.
I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded;
maybe you should drive . . ."
And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the
sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and
screeching and diving around the car, which was going about
100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas.
And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these
g*ddamn animals?"
@edeckers
— HST, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
26. •Webster's defines "mediocre" as. . .
•If you've been living under a rock. . .
•Take 2 parts "blah," and 3 parts "meh," and
mix them up to create the worst ledes ever.
@edeckers
Never Use These!
36. @edeckers
"If you have any young
friends who aspire to
become writers, the
second greatest favor
you can do them is to
present them with copies
of The Elements of Style.
"The first greatest, of
course, is to shoot them
now, while they’re
happy." – Dorothy Parker