By Dan Strum
When you consider that language provides us the means to say virtually anything, it is a shame that some writers use it to say nothing at all.Case in point: a subway ad proclaiming that some author is "Undisputedly one of the top thriller writers of the decade".
Well, I've got news for you – you are also one of the top thriller writers of the decade! As are, arguably, all but one of the other 6,888,986,739 people on the planet*!Whoever made this claim neutered the power of the word "undisputedly" by qualifying it as "one of" anyone! This is bad writing, plain and simple. This might be excusable, except that it is being used to promote writing! The person who wrote it is surely among of the nation’s top publicists, but certainly not among the top ten!
*This is the world population as per U.S. Census Bureau calculations, as estimated on 12/20/2010. http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
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