FIVE PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMY ‘ou're a long way. toward a‘read- able style when you can control how your SUBJECTS and VERBS support the story you tell about your CHARACTERS and their ACTIONS. But even when you match your grammar to your story, your sentences may still seem wordy and sraceless: In my personal opinion, it is necessary that we’all not fail to listen to and think over in a very careful manner each and every suggestion ‘that anyone offers to us. ‘The writer matched her agents and actions to her subjects and verbs, but used more words than her readers needed: Every opinion is personal, so cut personal And since a statement like this is obviously opinion, cut in my opinion. It is necessary means must. We implies all. Listen to and think over means consider In a careful manner means caréfully and very adds nothing. Fach and every is redundant, so we need only each. A suggestion is by definition offered to someone, so neither do we need that anyone offers to us. And since the negative not fail implies its positive, change the sentence to an afirmative, What's left is leaner: ‘We must consider each suggestion carefullyr 1 pruned five kinds of wordiness that suggest five principles of economy: 1, Delete words that mean litte ot nothing: very and all. 2. Delete words that repeat other words: every in each and every. 3. Delete words whose meaning your reader can infer from other ‘words: that someone offers us is from suggestion. 4. Replace a phrase with a word: listen to and think over => con- sider 5. Change unnecessary negatives to afirmatives Unfortunately, chee principles arc easier for me to state than for you to follow, because the only reliable way you can identify and remedy wwordiness is t0 slog through every sentence, word by word, Thats hard work, »