Situated in close proximity...
Coco Chanel said: "Fashion changes, style remains".
The 1920s edition of Fowler says of situate "The short form is still common in house-agents' advertisments, but elsewhere out of favour". The 1980s revision has hardened the line: "Used by estate agents. Has no place in common usage".
I'm not sure when house agents became estate agents, but I don't think that is what Coco had in mind.
The trouble with estate agents' redundant verbiage is that it is infecting all business writing (and writing generally). "On an annual basis", "situated in", "in the event that" and so on.
Think how much more information you could show if you cut the crap.
The 1920s edition of Fowler says of situate "The short form is still common in house-agents' advertisments, but elsewhere out of favour". The 1980s revision has hardened the line: "Used by estate agents. Has no place in common usage".
I'm not sure when house agents became estate agents, but I don't think that is what Coco had in mind.
The trouble with estate agents' redundant verbiage is that it is infecting all business writing (and writing generally). "On an annual basis", "situated in", "in the event that" and so on.
Think how much more information you could show if you cut the crap.
posted by Ian Cundell at 2:05 pm
1 Comments:
Definately: "located" is another classic. Why is something located in somewhere? Who is locating it, maps, people, what?
To my mind, if you can't immediately say who's doing what in a sentence, there's probably something wrong.
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