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Five Ways to Write Like The Economist [pdf] (2010)
- tailspin2019 4y agoThose interested in this may like to know that The Economist publishes a style guide in book form: https://www.amazon.com/Style-Guide-Economist-Books/dp/1610399811 https://www.amazon.com/Style-Guide-Economist-Books/dp/161039...
- cpach 4y agoAvailable online as well: https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/style_guide_12.pdf https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/st...
- zczc 4y agoThat's just a 20-pages preview
- tailspin2019 4y agoThat caught me out for a while too. I can’t help thinking that they would sell more copies of the full book if they made it clearer in that PDF that it’s just an excerpt!
- Animats 4y agoThey do have a certain style. Once a year or so, in tiny type at the bottom of some column in the magazine, they advertise for interns. An amusing filter.
- UIUC_06 4y agoAll good tips, and not just for lawyers. They're all things I try to do. Calling them "zinger verbs" is really underselling. The general principle is to use words with impact, be they nouns, adjectives, adverbs, or whatever. In the example, "feed" and "sap" and "vault over" are just much more exciting and evocative than "sustain" and "undermine," which are something a bureaucrat would write. "Shuffling along" gives you a mental picture of some old person moving slowly. I do find The Economist tedious and boring, but that's a problem of its outlook, which aims to never say anything that contradicts conventional wisdom.
- adhesive_wombat 4y agoOne "trick" that I can't stand, but is beloved by news editors (usually at the low end) is to avoid repeating the main noun and to do anything, no matter how awkward, to find another word: > A water shortage is has been announced. H2O use will be restricted... > A car factory burned down. The vehicle plant... It's jarring to repeat a word to often "by mistake" in close proximity [1]. It's not jarring if that's the subject at hand: it's actually more jarring to stretch for a synonym and make the reader follow that you're still taking about the same exact thing! [1]: Sometimes even the same unusual word repeated within the same book can stand out for the repetition more than for the word itself.
- Veen 4y agoThe Fowlers called this habit elegant variation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation
- xdavidliu 4y agooh so THAT's what that's called! This practice is fine for literature and other forms of art, but I often find people using it in code and comments and like, which find totally counterproductive and unnecessary.
- ch215 4y agoThis is known in the craft as monologophobia. Theodore Bernstein, a NYT journalist, who coined the phrase, described a monologophobe as someone 'who would rather walk naked in front of Saks Fifth Avenue than be caught using the same word more than once in three lines of type'. The most common example is journalists' aversion to repeating words like 'said' or 'told'. People don't _say_ things any more, they: continue, explain, add, verbalise, enunciate, vocalise, and so on.
- bombcar 4y agoWhich can be subtly changing the meaning - explain carries more baggage than said, as do some of the others.
- ayewo 4y agoShould probably add [2010] to the title since several of the examples were from a 2010 copy of the Economist. It’s interesting to look back in time to see how email spam was still top of the mind in 2010, enough for the Economist to write about it then, considering pg’s “A Plan for Spam” [1] was written 8 years earlier in 2002. 1: http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html
- dotancohen 4y agoEmail spam was already a known problem when I started using email in 1998. By 2010 I had been using custom email addresses for all my contacts for an entire decade, in an effort to combat spam.
- RachelF 4y agoThe Economist writing is not what it used to be. I've noticed many more grammatical errors and bad writing in the last 4 years. Perhaps they have fewer editors?
- yoyopa 4y ago
- sosull 4y agoI’ll believe it when I see study after study after study.
- fractallyte 4y agoCapital 'P' and 'T' and period after 'study'... ;-)
- dekken_ 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law
- mdp2021 4y agoI have seen articles about increases of dementia, and probably submitted them here. Some say it is the phosphates. Nonetheless, it is far from being a "oh well" situation (I just posted earlier, it is doom), and yes, more references would be in order. My impression is that "«people»" are typically "trying less and less", and taking more and more bad (regressive) compromises. If there is an acquired physiological issue I am not sure, and it certainly calls for getting more details: I clearly see a cultural issue.
- mdp2021 4y agoPS: I see a few members wanted to confirm this. There was no need, really.
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- MaxBarraclough 4y agoThere are 5 instances of starting a sentence with But. Perhaps I'm in a minority but I always find that jarring to read. I think writing modern style guides are divided on it, although they're not something I know much about.
- kybernetikos 4y agoAlmost all economist articles go something like 'you might think... because.... BUT... because... which is why X should...'. Given that, the But pivots the whole article, not a sentence, and it makes sense to allow it to start that section.
- harvey9 4y agoThe faux-objective version of how so many news and opinion articles start 'forget x, it's all about y'. Or 'don't do this, do that'. I'm very tired of seeing that format.
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- freetime2 4y agoThe Economist is my favorite news source, but if anything it’s because of the restraint they show with regards to sensationalism rather than any sort of titillating writing style. In fact, I have used The Economist to help me fall asleep on more occasions than I can count!
- xor99 4y agoThe economist meets the standards for a well written publication. However, it has a kind of faux-objective style. Meaning it uses the presentation and style of an objective and scientific publication but has an overwhelming subtext: mindless non-committal liberalism that finds a way into reporting on every issue.
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- zasdffaa 4y agoThey don't capitalise their acronyms which regularly catches me, forcing a rewind and a re-read; anyone know why not?
- zeckalpha 4y agoThey do, but typeset them with small caps.
- zasdffaa 4y agoOK, from <https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/08/28/nasas-newest-rocket-is-a-colossal-waste-of-money https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/08/28/nasas-newest-ro...> "The Space Launch System (sls) is the first step..." does 'sls' look upper or lower case to you?