Absolutely! (sort of...)

In 1980, one of my favorite rock bands, The Eagles, broke up. One of the band members didn’t leave much wiggle room when he reportedly said that The Eagles would play together again “when hell freezes over.” Then when the band reunited in 1994, their tour and album were titled, naturally, “Hell Freezes Over.” In a similar vein, actor Sean Connery, the original James Bond, vowed in 1971 that he would “never again” perform that role. Later, when Connery starred as James Bond in a 1983 film, it was titled, of course, “Never Say Never Again.”

Words like always, never, none, all, and every are called absolutes. When used in writing they leave no room for exception or compromise. Often, when responding to student papers, I will write a comment like “Never? Are you sure?” Now, am I saying here to never use absolutes in your writing? Of course not. Sometimes, absolutes are true, as in “the sun has never revolved around the earth” (despite what medieval church authorities would have had us believe). Often, however, these types of statements are not absolutely true. For example, as a new teacher I was cautioned not to make a statement like this to a student: “George, you never hand in your homework.” Why not say that? Because George will be sure to recall that one time, way back near the start of the semester, when he did indeed hand in his homework. Thus, George won’t focus on my point (that he must be more diligent about handing in his homework), but will instead obsess about finding the exception to prove me wrong. A more effective strategy would be to tell George that he needs to be more consistent about handing in his homework. When you use absolutes in your writing, readers will likewise be searching for the exception to your statement rather than listening to your argument.

Of course, the opposite of an absolute statement -- hedging and sounding wishy-washy by writing phrases like “sort of,” “kind of,” and “seems like” -- can be equally destructive to your prose. Straightforward, declarative statements are better, but always beware of using absolutes to assert the unprovable.

© 2014 Bob Dial.  All rights reserved.