4 ms·

Their style guide is available on the Wayback Machine [1]. The first few pages of the introduction are well worth a read. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/2002

Their style guide is available on the Wayback Machine [1]. The first few pages of the introduction are well worth a read. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20021031104254/http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673899 https://web.archive.org/web/20021031104254/http://www.econom...

mr-ron 6y ago
These are the rules written by George Owell apparently, if you search, many links come up with the same wording. https://gosolomon.com/content-marketing-and-george-orwells-6-rules-to-effective-writing/ https://gosolomon.com/content-marketing-and-george-orwells-6...
- bovine3dom 6y ago
  Yeah - perhaps you missed it, but it says "Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the English Language", 1946)" just before it enumerates them. I think lots of good style guides quote them. My favourite is probably Kingsley Amis's "The King's English". It has the distinct "old man shouts at clouds" energy that one gets best from posthumous volumes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kspacewalk2 6y ago
>Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (Working in an empowering environment, a topic discussed at a recent Economist conference) I can see why I need to reach for the Wayback Machine to read this great style guide. In the modern world, giving this example is far more trouble than it's worth. People do get touchy about challenges to their carefully promoted jargon, and now they are on the twitter.
- bovine3dom 6y ago
  Frankly I think it's more likely that they took it down because they want to sell more books: https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guide-12th-edition https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guid... The book has almost identical content from what I recall. I think they may have admitted defeat on the use of "he" for a hypothetical person of arbitrary gender.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    A lot of style guides are behind firewalls these days. I'm not sure all the reasons but it's probably some combination of concerns about revealing somewhat sensitive info and saying things in ways that some might find controversial.
    - SllX 6y ago
      More difficult to link to as well. Obviously not impossible if you can find it on the Internet Archive, but not everybody thinks to look there and sometimes you just have to get lucky.

mr-ron 6y ago

These are the rules written by George Owell apparently, if you search, many links come up with the same wording. https://gosolomon.com/content-marketing-and-george-orwells-6-rules-to-effective-writing/ https://gosolomon.com/content-marketing-and-george-orwells-6...

bovine3dom 6y ago
Yeah - perhaps you missed it, but it says "Keep in mind George Orwell's six elementary rules ("Politics and the English Language", 1946)" just before it enumerates them. I think lots of good style guides quote them. My favourite is probably Kingsley Amis's "The King's English". It has the distinct "old man shouts at clouds" energy that one gets best from posthumous volumes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

kspacewalk2 6y ago

>Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (Working in an empowering environment, a topic discussed at a recent Economist conference) I can see why I need to reach for the Wayback Machine to read this great style guide. In the modern world, giving this example is far more trouble than it's worth. People do get touchy about challenges to their carefully promoted jargon, and now they are on the twitter.

bovine3dom 6y ago
Frankly I think it's more likely that they took it down because they want to sell more books: https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guide-12th-edition https://shop.economist.com/products/the-economist-style-guid... The book has almost identical content from what I recall. I think they may have admitted defeat on the use of "he" for a hypothetical person of arbitrary gender.
- ghaff 6y ago
  A lot of style guides are behind firewalls these days. I'm not sure all the reasons but it's probably some combination of concerns about revealing somewhat sensitive info and saying things in ways that some might find controversial.
  - SllX 6y ago
    More difficult to link to as well. Obviously not impossible if you can find it on the Internet Archive, but not everybody thinks to look there and sometimes you just have to get lucky.