Mary Dash's Writing Tips
I find the "avoid gobbledygook" instruction a little odd. It's really about adopting a less formal register, which is fine, but words like "additional" and "purchase" aren't really obscure.<p>From the examples, it seems to be more about avoiding French- and Latin-derived words, and using Germanic-derived ones instead. We do tend to use our Norman root words in legal and other formal registers, and Anglo-Saxon roots do have a more active feel to them. And some of the examples are best left to legal documents ("pursuant", "concur"). It's probably decent advice to a novice writer, especially one who has been learning from academic or government writing and picked up an unnecessary sense of formality.<p>But they're hardly "gobbledygook". They're perfectly cromulent words, with shades of meaning different from their "synonyms", and can be used to enhance writing rather than obscure it.