Business writers love the word ‘compared’. It’s an easy way
of suggesting a relationship between two things without explaining – or sometimes
thinking – what that relationship actually is.
Ask yourself what this writer is trying to say:
“Demand in Europe appears to be
flat compared with last year”
‘Flat’ can mean many things, including inactive or lacking in energy (as when a fizzy drink goes flat). In business writing it usually means ‘at the same level’. But ‘compared with’ suggests that something is different. The sentence implies both change and no change. If something has indeed changed, there is no clue to the nature of that change. So, based on the above sentence, all of the following could be true:
“Demand in Europe appears to be more stable than last
year, when it rose sharply”
“Demand in Europe appears to be more stable than last
year, when it fell sharply”
“Demand in Europe appears to be more stable than last
year, when it fluctuated wildly, rising and falling sharply”
“Demand in Europe appears to be unchanged from last
year”
“Demand in Europe appears to be less than last year”
By using ‘compared with’, the writer has frustrated his own intentions: what
happened to demand in Europe remains a mystery.
Moral: When certain words become a habit, you might not realise that you haven't made your point.
I ran into this a lot in my last couple of years of teaching tech writing at a major university. Most of my students just needed the comparative adjective + "than" ("flatter than last year"), although I agree that explaining what happened last year would be helpful here.
ReplyDeleteThis is the proper blog for anyone who desires to search out out about this topic. You notice a lot its almost arduous to argue with you (not that I really would need…HaHa). You positively put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Great stuff, just nice! casino games
ReplyDelete