Consider the sentence "The Yankees are the greatest baseball team in history."(contented sigh)
[...] There are millions of Yankees fans and hundreds of baseball experts who would pick the Yankees as the best team in history. Instead, it would be better to eliminate the middleman of mentioning this opinion entirely, in favor of the facts that support the assertion: "The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series championships -- almost three times as many as any other team." This fact suggests that the Yankees are a superlative baseball franchise, rather than simply the greatest baseball team in history.
The idea is to let the reader draw their own conclusion about the Yankees' greatness based on the number of World Series the Yankees have won.
Objectivity over subjectivity. Dispassion, not bias.
2006-12-27
I (heart) Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words#Improving_weasel-worded_statements
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Another way of making the point is by asking: Does it make sense to say the opposite? If not, you should not say it.
"The Yankees are NOT the greatest baseball team in history" makes no sense. Therefore, you should not the original statement.
huh?
what original statement should I not what?
Anyway, that wasn't my point; they could have been talking about the warmth of chartreuse and I would have been just as ignorant.
My reason for posting this is my appreciation for their non-editorial position, i.e., letting the reader draw their own conclusions through objectivity.
Post a Comment