Style

Shorter sentences aren’t always easier to understand, whatever you may have heard from your composition teacher or writing software. The best writers generate meaning using sentence length as a stylistic tool. I don’t advocate complex sentences for every kind of writing—billboards, shopping lists, and social media posts should be as direct as possible—but simplicity itself …

I’m OK with anything you do with the English language that makes it more expressive and doesn’t sacrifice its logic (such as it is). But often, new ways of using English make sentences weaker, less communicative, and wimpy. I’m experiencing that with people using ‘experience’ as a verb. “The patient is experiencing pain.” That should …