Bad Words for Good

How foundations garble their message and lose their audience bad words for good Tony Proscio Table of Contents Simply Stated: Words Do Matter 4 A foreword by Michael Bailin, President Bad Words for Good 10 How foundations garble their message and lose their audience Static on the Line 19 Philanthropy’s favorite noise, and the meaning it conceals Coming to Terms 54 Drawing sense from the wells of gibberish Acknowledgements 60 Index 63 Copyright © 2001 by The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation Simply Stated: Words Do Matter It was in that spirit that a little over a year A foreword by Michael Bailin, President ago we commissioned Tony Proscio to write an essay for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation that pleaded with people throughout the riting has never come easy foundation world to rid their writing of jargon. for me and, frankly, I don’t In Other Words, which featured a catalog of expect that it ever will. commonly misused or confusing words, argued It has, however, gotten better that jargon-infested foundation-speak was more over the years. I attribute than an assault on our ears. The real threat Wthese modest improvements to two things. One of unclear language is its power to extinguish was the good fortune to have had a series of jobs thoughtful public discourse about important issues that required me to write regularly for a range that foundations are trying to address through of audiences. The second was the habit of asking their work. As Proscio noted, when people don’t a sampling of those people to comment on my understand what they’re reading or hearing, writing. Most often, the questions I’ve asked are: they’re not likely to respond, react, or comment. “Is what I’m saying clear? And what can I do to Instead, they’ll choose to opt out. make myself better understood next time?” Since the book’s release, hardly a day goes by I’ve surely benefited from constructive criti- when people don’t request copies for themselves cism (even when it hasn’t been easy to swallow). or for their colleagues. Not surprisingly, since Most helpful have been those people who, instead jargon isn’t the exclusive province of philanthropy, of commenting directly, held up my own writing requests come from all sectors and industries. to me and asked me to explain what I meant. Many have also written to urge us to keep up the 4 Bad Words for Good Simply Stated: Words Do Matter 5 good fight, to publish more words and guidance to our colleagues throughout the field (hence on how—and how not—to use them. our comfort with jargon). Whatever the reason, This book was commissioned in response and as the examples in this book show, we have to those requests. But it’s no mere sequel. It has a lot of work to do. Our failure to do a better job all the power and punch of the first. Like last of communicating will only undercut our ability time, Proscio began collecting words that founda- to achieve our missions. Grantmaking isn’t our tions routinely rely on to describe their work, only means for advancing change and improving and talked with others about the most egregious society. As foundations, we also need to engage examples he found. As he got deeper into his the public, along with policy makers and opinion investigation, he felt obligated to match—even leaders, in meaningful discussions about the surpass—his earlier effort to call attention to the underlying needs that are driving our grant hurt foundations do to their efforts to be heard choices. We also need to inform others, especially and understood. those outside our immediate circles, about the Proscio’s examples of the many ways founda- knowledge, lessons, and other discoveries that tions get tripped up by their own words are at are resulting from our work and that they might once illuminating and provocative. The message be able to put to good use. that came through loud and clear as I read his Many of the examples in this book will make essay is that foundations don’t yet pay enough you laugh, or even shake your head in disbelief, attention to the need, importance, and benefits but in the end Proscio minces no words about of clear writing and speaking. Some of that might the danger he sees in muddled communication. be attributable to a long history of our talking And while some of the examples he uses and the mostly to each other inside our organizations or conclusions he reaches might sting, it’s important 6 Bad Words for Good Simply Stated: Words Do Matter 7 to remember that criticism is never meaningful if worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers it doesn’t hit home. In the spirit of full disclosure, caused by a misplaced phrase in a well- I admit that I frequently winced at seeing our intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler foundation’s own words offered up as evidence expecting to be met at a railroad station and of the very sins we want to quash. But in my view, not being met because of a slipshod telegram. that is a fair price to pay for continuing the effort One can only imagine the many other we began with In Other Words. examples of damage caused by muddy prose Still, if after reading this you feel Proscio that White could have culled from the rivers has done you wrong, he offers you the same of words that regularly pour out of foundations. opportunity he gave us. Challenge him—and us, But instead of White, we have Tony Proscio. too. Email your comments to [email protected]. We’ll routinely post your comments—and Tony’s responses—on our website at www.emcf.org/jargon. One final note. In thinking about this volume, I recalled a plea for clear writing that E. B. White included in his revision of the 1935 classic usage book, The Elements of Style, originally published by William Strunk: Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly 8 Bad Words for Good Simply Stated: Words Do Matter 9 culled from a foundation memo recommending grants for education reform: These grants will incentivize administrators and educators to apply relevant metrics to assess achievement in the competencies they seek to develop. Bad Words for Good The writer seems to be saying that the grants would How foundations garble their message be used to pay teachers and principals who agree to test their and lose their audience students. Yet the writer was evidently embarrassed by this mercenary depiction of American educators (who seem to need “incentivizing” before they will consent to administer a test) and by the crudeness of ordinary learning, compared with Toward the end of the 1970s, the decade that replaced which “achieving competencies” offers young people a more the used car with the “pre-owned vehicle,” an alert reporter refined and elevating experience. discovered that park rangers in the Grand Canyon were What could have inspired this writer to dance so awkwardly routinely killing wild burros. The beasts’ grazing evidently around his subject? “Muddled thinking” is one common, if contributed to soil erosion. Confronted with a charge of unkind, explanation. Many critics of clumsy writing are inclined organized slaughter, a ranger objected: “We prefer to call it to advance it almost automatically in situations like this one. 1 According to direct reduction.” 1 Trouble is, it doesn’t fit this case. The memo goes on—albeit in columnist William Some two decades later, a more benign but equally much the same style—to present a carefully reasoned and Safire, the incident squeamish American foundation reported that it was lowering politically astute argument. The fact that it takes three readings prompted Michael the incidence of “negative health outcomes” among a group to figure out what that argument might be is unfortunate for Winship of the of poor people. Fewer of the people, it seems, had died. both the reader and the writer. But once it’s puzzled out, the New York Times to (Unfortunately, the foundation’s boast may prove overhasty. reasoning leaves no grounds for suspecting careless thought. wonder, “What do Sooner or later, all of us have pretty much the same “health A more plausible explanation might be an excess of cau- you suppose indirect outcome,” an eventuality against which even very large tion. The writer is, after all, proposing that a foundation give reduction of burros endowments have been known to fail. But never mind.) people money for doing something that many (less astute) constitutes? Birth- To be fair, death and disease leave most people groping observers would consider merely all-in-a-day’s-work. The control lectures?” for euphemisms. So perhaps the minced words in these sentence, like much of the rest of the memo, grapples with cases can be indulged, if not quite forgiven. Yet something some relatively ungainly political facts: Many teachers dislike more mysterious seems to be afoot in this next bit of gibberish, 10 Bad Words for Good How Foundations Garble Their Message 11 the kinds of tests that this foundation hopes to induce. The test results will embarrass some schools and teachers. And the foundation can expect some heat for stepping into These questions of motive—of why experts in foundations so controversial an arena. Rather than state all of that bluntly, and think-tanks seem intent on expressing themselves in and thereby risk scaring off fellow officers, trustees, and stilted phrases that harm their message—are not, by them- assorted allies, the writer may have chosen to veil the contro- selves, the subject of this essay.

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