Plain English in ten little words

From The Jolly Contrarian
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  • May — don’t confer entitlements that the parties had in any case. Don’t say a thing more than is necessary. Don’t overcommunicate. Less is more.
  • Bypassive tense. Write in the active, with energy, and in a way that clearly assigns and accepts responsibility
  • Of — nominalisation, adjectivisation
  • Shall — fusty old language
  • And/or — nervous laungage
  • verb — complicated sentence constructions (because the simple verb (give, do, be, make, have) is usually accompanied by a noun that could itself have been a verb
  • Without limitation — parentheticals that by definition do not add anything.
  • Leverage — jargon that is designed to make the writer look wise, and not the reader enlightened.
  • Doubt — writing that fails to avoid doubt in the first place.
  • Judge — question motivation for writing this way.