backKill off the weasel words in your business documents

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By Lynne Laracy

The best way to kill a weasel [word] is to ask it a question

To ensure your business writing is confident and strong, you’ll need to hunt down and kill the weasel words.

The term ‘weasel word’* comes from the belief (right or wrong, who knows?) that weasels suck the substance out of eggs through a small hole and leave the shells intact. That means you can have a basketful of yummy looking eggs, but when you come to eat them, their essence has been sucked out. It’s a great metaphor for weak business writing.

There are many breeds of weasel words. There are those that specialise in sucking the life out of the word next to them. They often hide in adverbs or adjectives.

  • That was not particularly agreed to.
  • It is probably correct to say.
  • The rate has possibly risen.
  • Voluntary redundancy.
  • It has, in most respects/somewhat/to all intents and purposes improved conditions.

Then there are those weakling words that attempt to make things sound bigger, better, brighter and more authoritative than they really are. Here’s a few.

  • Everyone says (Who is everyone?)
  • Research tells us (What research, by whom, and how reliable was it?)
  • A commonly held belief is (By whom?)
  • Save up to 80 per cent (Yes, but how much, really?)
  • A recent study by a well-known expert in this field (What study, when, about what, how big and who was this guy?)
  • A growing body of evidence (How big, how much and by whom?)

And here are some perfectly good words that can become weasels if you are not vigilant.

  • A lot, many, almost all, most (But how much?)
  • Improved, better (Again, by how much?)
  • Helps, assists, is useful, boosts (What role does it really play?)
  • May, could (Ah, but will you?)
  • Has been linked to (How strongly? In what way? Are we sure?)

And of course, the passive language gives us lots of scope to weasel.

  • It has been said
  • It has been shown
  • It is noted that

The question to all of these is ‘Who by?’

So if we want to kill the weasels in our writing, we need to ask more questions of ourselves – before the readers do. Otherwise, we leave them with writing that is just an empty shell – full of promise but ultimately vague and unsatisfying.

See our next blog on that other breed of weasel – the euphemism (we had to let him go), and its cousin, business jargon (in the interests of achieving our strategically aligned deliverables, we are downsizing and exiting this market space).

Let us know what your favourite weasel words of any stripe are.

* The term ‘weasel word’ is attributed to Stewart Chaplin, who used it in a short story published in Century Magazine in 1900. It was later popularised by former US president Theodore Roosevelt, who used it to criticise a rival’s proposals for ‘universal voluntary conscription’.

 

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Comments (2)

Sarah Holmes

Great blog Lynne. I can really see how asking those questions of yourself first, then dropping the 'ifs, buts and maybes' to clearly state the actual proposal and its benefits to the reader is more punchy, convincing and much more likely to get a buy! You are my writing guru! Thanks!

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Adelina Ong

I found your blog particularly helpful and it is a commonly held belief that you are communicating better when using these word weasels. It is noted now by the writer this may not be the case! Thanks Lynne! Just being playful here but in all seriousness, thank you for this helpful tip. Will hunt down and kill the weasels!!

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