Somehow I missed blucarbnpinwheel's excellent post from earlier in the week with a boatload of George Saunders columns from The Guardian. Using my illicit underworld connections, I've managed to get my copy of The Braindead Microphone an astounding two days early, so I should have something to say about it tomorrow. In the meantime, here's G.S. on the power of language:

Still, this sentence doesn't sound so great: "We are ignoring the genocide in Darfur because the victims are poor and far away."

Enter the "power of revision". Are "we" ignoring the genocide? I'm not. I'm writing about it. Let's be precise: "They are ignoring..." And are "they" really "ignoring" it? Aren't they "deferring action with regard to" the genocide in Darfur?

Also: "genocide" is such a charged word. OK, yes, armed members of one racial group are trying to eliminate all the members of another group, but let's not jump to conclusions. Let's wait until all the evidence is in - like, 50 years or so. Once the killers have been given a chance to do what they are trying to do, we will be better equipped to see what it was they were attempting.

Also, let's change "genocide" to "tragic recent events shrouded in the inevitable mist of unverifiable information", which makes our sentence: "They are deferring action with regards to the tragic recent events shrouded in the mist of unverifiable information in Darfur because the victims are poor and far away."

But would we ignore someone because they were "poor and far away"? I wouldn't. I might "make the strategic, albeit heart-rending, decision to refrain from violent military intervention in the recognition that war is not to be entered into lightly".

Now we're getting somewhere. Especially if we go into passive voice: "Action with regards to the tragic recent events shrouded in the mist of unverifiable information in Darfur has been deferred in a strategic, albeit heart-rending, decision to refrain from violent military intervention in the recognition that war is not to be entered into lightly."

Good. Almost meaningless. Yet sounds almost uplifting. Kind of like: "Never again."