On Conciseness and Clarity

• Author: Bryan A. Garner
• Pages: 28-29

On Conciseness and Clarity

An ‘interview’ with the late

British philosopher Jeremy Bentham

By Bryan A. Garner

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is known as a philoso-

pher, economist and legal theorist whose work gr eatly

infl uenced 19th-centur y legislation. He embarked on

reforming many things , including legal language. A

utilitaria n, Bentham detested legal jargon, which he

called the “per version of language to the purpose of

securing ignorance a nd misconception of the law on

the part of the people.” It “converts the whole fi eld of

legislation into a thicket , impenetrable to the legisla-

tor’s eye: when he does work, he works blindfold; he

works at random, at the hazard of cre ating more mis-

chief than he cures.”

I sat down with Bentham’s books, re ady to inter-

rogate them as par t of my series of “interviews” with

long-dead authors. Bentham used a heavi ly mascu-

line language that wa s typical of his time. The replies

are his words verbatim fr om the 11-volume Works of

Jeremy Bentham (1843), edited by John Bowring.

Garner: Do you give much thought to w riting style?

Bentham: In a cer tain sense every man has power

over his own style; at any rate , whatsoever be the lan-

guage which he employs, his style i s such as he has

made it.

Garner: Yes, but what style is most desir able?

Bentham: To know what are the propert ies desir-

able in a language is ... to know t he properties desirable

in the sum of the discourse s used by all those several

individuals on all t he di erent purpose s and occasions

taken together, for and on which they ca n have need to

use the language. Some proper ties will be alike desir-

able, or at any rate desirable to all pur poses and on all

occasion s without disti nction.

Garner: But conciseness is su rely desirable, right?

Bentham: The gr eater the number is of the words

that are employed in the expression of a given i mport,

the less clear is the disc ourse which they compose.

Garner: How do you defi ne conciseness?

Bentham: The concisenes s of an expression is

inversely as the number of words employed in the con-

veyance of the idea intended to be conveyed by it.

Garner: Are you pul ling my leg? Conciseness does

lead to clarit y, doesn’t it?

Bentham: To a certai n degree conciseness is con-

tributory to clea rness; that is to say, the want of it is

contributory to the absenc e of, or is opposite to, clear-

ness—is contributory, at any rate, to obscu rity, and it

may be to ambiguity.

Garner: I’ve read your work a s being critical of those

who use imprecise words or simply wrong words.

Bentham: In propor tion to the degree to which a

man’s discourse is seen to be defac ed by these imper-

fections is the degree of wea kness under which his

mind is seen to labor.

Garner: You’ve written a fai r amount about speech.

You’re critical of those who are underprepared for

speak ing.

Bentham: Fumbli ng is the natural result, and by that

means a symptom, of wa nt of preparation. ... In every

spoken discourse, in genera l, want of adequate prep-

aration is much more apt to be unavoidable than in

any written d iscourse. In a spoken discourse, lax ity

and fumbling are a ccordingly more excusable and less

o ensive than in a written discou rse.

Garner: You’ve written a good dea l about legislators.

What are your views ab out them?

Bentham: The science of leg islation is still in its cra-

dle—it has scarcely been be gun to be formed in the

cabinets of philosophers: Among legislators i n name,

scarcely any other prac tice can be found than that

of children, who in their pratt le copy what they have

learned of their nurses. That a sc ience may be learned,

a motive is necessar y; that the science of legislation

may be learned, or rather may be creat ed, motives so

much the more powerful are nece ssary, as this sci-

ence is most repulsive and thorny. For the pursuit of

this study, an ardent and perseveri ng mind is required,

which can scarc ely be expected to be formed in the lap

of ease, of luxur y and of wealth. Among those whose

wants have been foresta lled from their cradle—among

those who become legislators to g ratify their vanity or

relieve their ennui—there can scar cely be found one

who could be called a legisl ator without mockery.

Garner: What ma kes for good legislation?

Bentham: The end and ai m of a legislator should be

the happiness of the people. In matters of leg islation,

general utility should be his g uiding principle. The sci-

ence of legislation consists, t herefore, in determining

what makes for the good of the par ticular community

whose interests are at st ake, while its art consists i n

contriving some means of re alization.

G a r n e r : But you don’t seem to like the s tate of

legislation.

Bentham: Confusion ... per vades the substance of the

several statute s.

28 || ABA JOURNAL JULY-AUGUST 2019

PHOTO BY WINN FUQUA PHOTOGRAPHY

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