"Of" thee I sing

Today, for a limited time only, I am selling my Curiously Strong All Purpose Prose Revivifying Tonic. OK, I am giving it away. But it has all the trappings of a good patent medicine. It goes down easy and it promises tremendous results. Unlike patent medicines, my “tonic”—actually, an editing tip—actually works.

Here it is: Step One: When you are “finished” writing a brief or memo, do a word search for “of.” Step Two: Reword the sentence in which “of” appears, eliminating the term if possible. Step Three: Rinse and repeat as needed.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the word “of.” But its overuse is a hallmark of poor writing. In his excellent Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, Bryan Garner observes that “the word of is, in anything other than small doses, among the surest indications of flabby writing.” He claims that “reducing the ofs by 50 percent or so can, even at the sentence level, greatly improve the briskness and readability of the prose.”

Garner is right. Obvious examples of of-flabbification are sentences with multiple “of” clauses, like “Plaintiff is the father of the husband of the daughter of the decedent.” These sentences strain the mental processing capacity of most readers. Much better to say, “Plaintiff is the decedent’s daughter’s father-in-law.” Better yet, break the concept into two sentences. “Decedent’s daughter Jill married Jack. Jack is Plaintiff’s son.” It is a recipe for confusion to string together several “of” clauses in a row. Searching for “of” will identify these turbid constructions.

Less egregious “of” clauses also benefit from rewording. Often they contain nominalizations (see previous blog entry). For example; “This was a violation of the contractual provision governing early termination.” Here, “violation” is the nominalization that needs reworking. A far better way to phrase the sentence is “This violated the contract’s early-termination provision.” Using the search function to look for “of” helps you spot these hidden verbs, which may not otherwise jump out during an edit.

Why do writers overuse “of”? I can think of three possible reasons. First, during the writing process, we tend to envision the thing being modified—not its qualifiers and caveats. So when we discuss “The president of Brazil,” we have in mind the person, not the country. Thus, when writing, we lead with the person and follow with the qualifiers about the country. We start with “president,” and complete the thought with “of Brazil.” Second, many writers are timid about punctuating possessives. So instead of writing “the owners’ obligation,” they write, “the obligation of the owners.” This avoids the rule regarding plural possessives, of course. But it also retards the flow of the prose. Third, many writers do not know how to use phrasal adjectives effectively. So instead of saying “the implied-consent doctrine,” they write “the doctrine of implied consent.”

Next time you think you are done with a document, search for all instances of “of” and see how many you can eliminate. This little Revivifying Tonic will add sparkle and shine to even the most tedious brief or memo. And it is backed by a 100% money-back guarantee.