Verbal camouflage.
In his aptly named seminal book, “On Writing Well,” William
Zinsser extolls the virtues of simplified, well-crafted prose. He crusades against
the cloudy and the obtuse, which is used to both hide inadequacies and inflate
the importance of people in power. “Clutter,” he writes, “is the disease of
American writing.”
The State of New York might want to see a doctor.
This gem of a paragraph was found while researching this
article, pulled from a state
order regarding nuclear power subsidies.
“I concur only to the extent of agreeing to initiate this new
aspect of the proceeding to open the dialogue on this issue and does not
indicate I have made a determination one way or the
other with respect to the substantive outcome on the future actions
on this matter or any other related matters.”
It’s grammatically sound. It’s definitely English.
And it’s completely unintelligible.
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