Inelegant Variation

Originally published by Wayne Schiess.

Avoiding word repetition—wisely

My books: Legal Writing Nerd: Be One, Plain Legal Writing: Do It.

It’s common writing advice to avoid repeating a word in the same sentence or the same paragraph. Here’s typical advice from Ben Yagoda, a professor of English and journalism: “Word repetition is a telltale sign of awkward, non-mindful writing.… [It] sounds like a fingernail on the blackboard.”[1] This is what he’s talking about:

• The defendant’s manager had seen ice on the floor near the soda machine and had asked other employees to monitor the floor in front of the soda machine so that water did not accumulate near the soda machine.

The word repetition there is truly, fingernail-scrapingly awkward. So let’s rewrite:

• The defendant’s manager had seen ice on the floor near the soda machine and had asked other employees to monitor the floor in front of the soft-drink dispenser so that water did not accumulate near the carbonated-beverage appliance.

Better? That’s an example of what the writing expert Patricia O’Conner calls “Slender Yellow Fruit Syndrome,” as in “Freddie was offered an apple and a banana, and he chose the slender yellow fruit.”[2]

Better writing advice would be to avoid word repetition without resorting to “elegant variation,” the practice of using a synonym or near-synonym or creating your own, made-up synonym (slender yellow fruit). The English-usage expert H.W. Fowler coined the phrase “elegant variation” for this writing flaw and said, “The fatal influence is the advice given to young writers never to use the same word twice in a sentence―or within 20 lines or other limit.… There are few literary faults so widely prevalent ….”[3]

Today, the writing expert Bryan Garner gives it a more apt name: “inelegant variation,” and he doesn’t like it either: “Variety for variety’s sake can confuse readers.”[4] And as to legal writing, Garner qualifies the advice: “One should not repeat a word in the same sentence if it can be felicitously avoided.”[5]

So let’s rewrite our example to avoid needless repetition but also to avoid inelegant variation. How? There are other tools, but we can often avoid repetition and inelegant variation by using pronouns carefully and by eliding understood concepts:

• The defendant’s manager had seen ice on the floor near the soda machine and had asked other employees to monitor the floor there so that water did not accumulate.

Besides the guidance on word repetition generally, legal writers should remember that legal writing has terms of art, standard terminology, and stock phrases. Varying those can cause problems: “If we use the word ‘negligence’ in one paragraph and ‘fault’ in the next, the reader will wonder if we are talking about the same thing or something different.”[6] So say Harold and John Warnock, a father-son pair of lawyers. Their advice? “Do not vary key terms.”[7]

That means that legal writers shouldn’t do this:

• The claimant first asserted that …. Nevertheless, the hearing examiner refused to consider the complainant’s submission …. On no other occasion did the movant mention the incident ….

This is confusing because the reader likely wonders if claimant and complainant and movant are the same person, and upon realizing they are, is likely to be annoyed. In this context, repeating the word claimant is entirely appropriate, and a careful writer could work in pronouns, too.

So avoid inelegant variation. Don’t fear sounding simple, and don’t go nuts with a thesaurus. If you can’t felicitously work around it, go ahead and use the same word twice.

My books: Legal Writing Nerd: Be One, Plain Legal Writing: Do It.

[1] Ben Yagoda, How to Not Write Bad 135, 137 (2013).

[2] Patricia T. O’Conner, Woe Is I 199 (1996).

[3] H.W. Fowler, Modern English Usage 148 (2d ed., Ernest Gowers, ed., 1965)

[4] Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage 508 (4th ed. 2009).

[5] Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage 548 (3d ed. 2011).

[6] John Phelps Warnock & Harold C. Warnock, Effective Writing: A Handbook with Stories for Lawyers 137 (2003).

[7] Id.

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