Speak Clearly, Write Simply

Speak Clearly, Write Simply©

By

Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I am NOT impressed by people who speak in circles. By people who want to blind everybody else with science so to speak. Talk simply and clearly, so the majority understand without having to scratch their heads.

Yes in ages past, the peasants could not understand what the master was saying, so he must be right because we are the ill educated, and he is the master after all. Then the printing press was invented and everybody could read. So we were not as impressed with the master’s learning.

Then you get the great writers, are some trying to impress themselves, polishing their own ego. I like a good story, either well told or well written, storyteller is the 2^nd old profession in the world. Somebody had to tell the rest of the tribe what went on in the bushes, or whatever was the ancient equivalent of behind the bike sheds.

We have the quality newspapers and the tabloids, the style is different in each. You have the Dan Browns and the Jeffery Archers, each tells things differently. One is a storyteller and the other thinks because his plots are good people will put up with the lack of good storytelling.

Frank Cason used to say “It’s the way I tell them,” and he was right. Telling tales is a skill, a great skill, the storyteller got a seat by the fire, and a bite to eat, nowadays they are called After Dinner Speakers. It is an industry in itself, I’d love to get my foot in that door.

The use of words as toys, that can be built like Lego into many different things. You have love songs which will pluck at your girl’s heart strings and get you into her bed. We have songs that’ll make your blood boil as you march off to war. We have melodies that bring tears to all our eyes, simple words can have so much power. Think of Last Night of The Proms.

A speech in the House of Commons has rallied the Nation in time of war, mere words have changed a nation’s course in History itself. I believe that it is the simple clear words that have counted most, which have exploded through History, and beaten tyrants into the dust.

So all you writers and speakers out there, this is not The Good Old Days, with Leonard Sachs introducing the acts. Communication   means what it says, the transfer of ideas from one person to another. And if the ideas are not being transfer then it’s your fault and not theirs, so keep it simple, or do you enjoy the sound of your own voice?