Nods and winks

I was going to write a short note about style... but then I thought, No - I will keep any discussion of actual texts, actual writers for another time. Instead, I've gone back to my notebooks so that I can pass on something I wrote down several years ago...

There is a style that seeks to appear weighty, learned, refined... and above all, serious. At its worst, you find this style in the learned and scholarly journals. It is easy enough to heap scorn on such a style... all you have to do is quote it. More useful is to locate the thought that the learned pretentious man or woman was reaching for and then to restate it in the plain, pithy way of common speech, common wisdom, speech honed to a kind of folk poetry over the years.

So, example one: "Ornithological species of identical plumage habitually congregate in the closest possible proximity."
Corrective one: " Birds of a feather flock together."

Example two: "An inflection of the optic covering is the equivalent of the tilt of the cranium to a quadruped devoid of the visionary senses."
Corrective two: " A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse."

Do I make my point? Of course I do. Do you and I, dear reader, agree? Do we think alike? Of course we do. The case is too persuasive. But a cautionary note. Remember that other wise, pithy saying: " Great minds think alike, fools seldom differ." Debate is never a done turkey.