Why is it that writers who seldom breathe a sentence longer than a dozen words are not the least bit reluctant to write 30- and 40-word sentences?

While conversational language produces sentences that frequently are fewer than 10 words, writers struggle to keep their average sentence length under 20 words.

Tight, concise writing has the singular goal of promoting clarity.

Mose has written often about how simple (not simplistic) writing involves a discipline that can be achieved by following some simple guidelines:

Use active voice: “Police arrested four suspects ...” rather than “Four suspects were arrested by police ...”

Avoid expletives: “Three teams are tied for first place ...” rather than “There are three teams tied for first place ...”

Limit participles: “They plan to visit ...” rather than “They are planning on visiting ...”

Write the positive: “She has no idea ...” rather than “She doesn't have any idea ...”

Those are easy to define.

Less obvious, sometimes, is elimination of useless words – especially those that we often read or hear.

Call them superfluous; call them redundant.

Just don't call them when it's time to write.

For example:

once again - By itself, again usually works just fine. Again is defined as “once more,” so ... “once once more”? Besides, aren't once and again mutually exclusive?

away from – By itself, from alone usually works just fine. If you run from something, doesn't that imply away?

at about - Mose is especially sensitive to this contradiction: at is precise, and about is approximate. So, which do you use? Well, it depends on the time – Is it precise, or is it approximate? It seldom is both.

and also - A redundancy that also can be found in sentences that begin, “In addition to ... he also ...”

While those word pairs might sometimes be needed for sentence rhythm or flow, they usually can be reduced to one word.

Tight, concise writing isn't achieved by doing one big thing. It's achieved by doing lots of little things.

Mose was distressed this past week to learn that the grammatical barbarians had stormed the castle, run roughshod through the place, and left their muddy bootprints all over the good furniture.

And Mose isn't one to overreact.

But the Associated Press style gurus tweeted this message on Tuesday:

“Hopefully, you will appreciate this style update, announced at #aces2012. We now support the modern usage of hopefully: it's hoped, we hope.”

“Support the modern usage” is code for “have succumbed to popular misuse.”

That means the AP Stylebook is no more honorable than a dictionary, which readily embraces grammatical gaffes if enough people make them often enough.

AP style on hopefully had always been in sync with traditional usage.

“It means in a hopeful manner,” the stylebook has cautioned. “Do not use it to mean it is hoped, let us hope or we hope.

“Right: It is hoped that we will complete our work in June.

“Right: We hope that we will complete our work in June.

“Wrong as a way to express the thought in the previous two sentences: Hopefully, we will complete our work in June.”

Wrong no more!

An adverb should modify a verb, adjective or another adverb.

But under AP's recent capitulation to mass ignorance about adverbs, hopefully now may become a phrase in itself, complete as a subject and verb.

That being the case, the comma should not be necessary afterward when the word introduces a sentence. But the AP was understandably silent on that difficult matter.

For many years, Mose has banned the use of hopefully for journalists whom he has supervised, for two reasons:

1) It is inevitably misused.

2) Writers ought to avoid adverbs anyway.

The word is allowed in direct quotations, but nowhere else.

Nay, we shall never succumb to the barbarians at the gate.

Next they will want acceptance for the singular “they.” (e.g., The team didn't know whom they would play next after they won their third straight game.)

Just wait. It's coming.

And you should not expect the AP to hold the fort.

Stretched high atop and across various interstate highways in Illinois is a distracting electronic sign that is used to convey timely information to motorists about road and weather conditions that might affect driving.

These days, as the winter season gives way to construction season, the message is more than a warning; it's a threat.

Hit a worker
$10K fine
14 yrs in jail

Journalists who are properly trained to edit everything – restaurant menus, church bulletins, street signs, etc. – realize that the state wouldn't put you in jail for 14 years.

The state would put you in prison.

As the AP Stylebook explains, prisons house felons, while jails confine people convicted of minor offenses.

Of course, jails temporarily hold pre-trial detainees who are accused of serious crimes, but their post-conviction sentences are served in prisons – penitentiaries and reformatories – known in these genteel times as “correctional centers.”

Professional writers need the discipline to avoid being influenced by weak conversational vocabularies as reflected by roadside signs and other pedestrian-level purveyors of language.

For example, a news release showed up this week for a “media availability” in Rockford involving three regional politicians.

The statement promised the candidates would “discuss the outcome of the election, plans moving forward, and what lays ahead in Congress for the year.”

Writers and editors often have their own troubles understanding lay and lie, but they should have a better understanding of language than do political flacks.

Still, journalists' confusion can be reinforced by such popular – if improper – usage.

Publications do it to themselves, too.

One newspaper last week published a letter to the editor in which a writer was allowed to say this:

Politicians don’t have anything to offer, so they just criticize each other to show us how strong their principals are. Principals aside, what we want is solutions to the ever-building problems of modern life.

School principals can be strong, but the writer clearly meant principles. The editor did the citizen writer, the newspaper's readers, and his own staff no favors by allowing such confusion to be printed.

Another newspaper has recently published headlines referring to a trouper as a trooper, and using hone in when home in was correct – language errors that professionals should not make.

No, it's not easy getting it right in a world where it's often presented incorrectly.

But language is our business, our primary tool. We need to know how to use it, despite bad environmental influences.

Mose heard recently from a fellow editor about use of the word infer ... and related matters.

Her question involved this sentence:

[The candidate] flatly denied [her opponent's] inferring that she would be engaged in “pay-to-play” politics.

“I was looking at this sentence ... and wanted to get your thoughts on the use of the word ‘inferring,’” the editor wrote. “In this case, it looks to me like this is not an appropriate use of the word. ... I don't think that [the candidate] could actually deny what someone else is inferring, as a person can infer whatever he or she wants from something. Does this make sense?”

Her concern made perfect sense.

You could “dispute,” but not “deny,” someone's “inferring,” but the writer probably meant “implying” – and even that's the wrong word.

Primary, of course, was the confusion over inferring, which is often mixed up with its evil twin, implying.

In this particular case, the candidate's opponent could have been inferring, but he more likely would have been implying, i.e., suggesting without really saying it. The context wasn't clear.

But it actually seemed as if the opponent was doing neither.

Here is Mose's response:

“In this case, denied is the wrong word. So is inferring.

“The listener or reader infers. The speaker or writer implies.

“But implying also wouldn't be the right word, because he didn't just suggest ‘pay for play’ – he flat-out alleged it. So ...

“[The candidate] disputed her opponent's allegation that she was engaged in ‘pay to play' politics.

“Or, more simply ...

“[The candidate] denied that she was engaged in ‘pay to play' politics.

“Whether her denial was made flatly or emphatically might be some license you extend to the writer who talked to her.“

Context is important, of course.

But be careful about using the words imply and infer in regard to a person's specific statements. Those words usually represent not objective fact, but the writer's subjective judgment about the speaker's/writer's intention or the listener's/reader's interpretation.

Reporting works better when we write what people say and ask them to clarify any uncertainty about their intent.

Mose was reading his newspaper one day last week when he was suddenly attacked by a dreaded triple redundancy, which leapt from the sports section and lunged for Moses's throat.

Of course, Mose has dealt with such creatures before. And this was a familiar beast: the common “reason-why-because” triclops. Mose grabbed the monster by the vowels and twisted them violently until the syntax burst. The paper absorbed most of the mess.

But Mose thought of the many unsuspecting readers – oh, the innocent children! – who might not have been aware they were being infected by such a grotesque grammatical virus. Here's what it looked like:

Part of the reason why Cutler excelled with Marshall was because the Broncos' offensive line kept him on his feet.

Any of those three words could have worked in a more concisely written sentence, but we don't need all three. In order of decreasing length, that sentence could have said:

1) Part of the reason Cutler excelled with Marshall was that the Broncos' offensive line kept him on his feet.

2) Cutler excelled with Marshall in part because the Broncos' offensive line kept him on his feet.

3) Why did Cutler excel with Marshall? The Broncos' offensive line kept him on his feet.

Of course, the him and his, in this construction, seem to refer to Marshall, the latter male person named in that sentence. But the writer intended to have Cutler as the antecedent. Better to replace the him with “the quarterback.”

4) Why did Cutler excel with Marshall? The Broncos' offensive line kept the quarterback on his feet.

Those triclops are out there. Don't say Mose didn't warn you.