Bland inanity

"I guess I should warn you," uber-bureaucrat Alan Greenspan once told a Senate Committee, "if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said." Don't you hate people who intentionally obfuscate what they're saying, and want themselves to be intentionally misunderstood? Who talk in inanities, and never say what they mean? You too? Then I've just started a book I need to recommend, but Julian has beaten me to it:

Richard Mitchell is well known as the publisher of the controversial monthly - The Underground Grammarian. In Less Than Words Can Say, Mitchell tries to open our eyes and ears to the mind-numbing language used by bureaucrats, politicians, teachers, administrators and blowhards of all stripes.

Says Mitchell himself in his foreword:

If I told you that this little book would provide you with general insight into the knowledge of a discipline, would you read on? If so, then you had better read on, for you are in danger. People all around you are offering inanity, and you are ready to seize it, like any well-behaved American consumer dutifully swallowing the best advertised pill. You are, in a certain sense, unconscious.

Good stuff, which I can highly recommend -- and it's all online here!

LINKS: Less Than Words Can Say - Julian Pistorius
Less Than Words Can Say - Online text