MY MOTTO

Would you perchance be desirous of endeavouring to appraise your aptitude vis-à-vis the resolution of the following circumlocutions of apophthegms?

Or to put it more simply: Would you like to try your hand at interpreting the following rewritten versions of two familiar proverbs?

– It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed lactose fluid.
– Freedom from encrustation of grime is contiguous to divinity.

Were you able to figure out that the first one translates as "Don't cry over spilled milk" and the second as "Cleanliness is next to godliness"? Much simpler and shorter!

And so we get to my motto ...

"Simply clearer" has both a face value interpretation and an interpretation that requires a bit of "poetic licence".

In the first instance my motto reflects both my quest for maximum clarity and an ability to achieve that goal. Simplifying complex concepts is my hallmark. Whether I'm copy-editing, copywriting, translating, presenting a seminar or leading a workshop, I always try and ensure that everything is ultimately simply clearer.

Typical of the feedback (usually unsolicited) I receive from clients is this comment by Gavin Wakefield, author of Alexander Boddy, Pentecostal Anglican Pioneer:

"Nicky Grieshaber [is] a most careful and thoughtful copy-editor who enabled me to say better what I intended at many points."

Secondly, my motto reflects my belief that the simpler we can keep our communication the clearer it will be. Self-evident as this idea may appear, not everyone always puts into practice. For example, many people write long, involved sentences rather than shorter ones, and use fancy expressions when simple words would do.

Life is complicated enough in our hectic and information-cluttered modern world! There's great merit in developing a sense of keeping it simple wherever we can.