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.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.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.