One of the graces of a rich language like English or French is that its words may be put together so as to say the same thing in many different ways. All of these have magic in them, the magic of carrying your meaning weightily, lightly, or explosively into your reader s mind. Consider the reader Everything we write except the occasional pieces we scribble just for the joy we find in putting words together should take account of the reader s comfort, interest, and capacity to understand. Apply that specification to sales letters, answers to complaints welcomes to new customers and shareholders, and even to greetings and compliments, and you will find that it is a vital part of good communication. But this is a truth often obscured by our present passion for form letters and the low standard allowed to prevail in business correspondence.
Writing has no purpose save to meet the needs of the reader.
Before the days of the pony express and airmail, communication on this continent was by smoke signal. When the Indian was making signals it was he and not the friend with whom he was com- municating who got smoke in his eyes. We must choose our words so that the reader will be sure to understand them without waste of time and thought. They must tell the necessary facts on the vocabulary level -of the reader. They must convey to the reader something of the way we feel toward him.