Speak plainly and don't exaggerate.

To convince others, always understate your case. Never oversell it.

Boy, it’s hard to avoid stretching the truth a little when you’re trying to make a point. You know you’re right. You know your cause is just. If only your reader/listener would get it!

It’s so tempting to exaggerate to elicit an emotional reaction that will make them side with you and the issue you’re championing. It’s almost impossible to avoid. Even though I know better, I surely do it from time to time.

But we shouldn’t. Hyperbole makes our arguments weaker, not stronger. They make us lose credibility. The entire foundation of our case appears weak once our argument has been found to be exaggerated in one respect or other.

It makes us look (at least to some extent) like liars.

In seeking support for my argument today, I found a great little article called “The Perils of Hyperbole” by a lawyer named Diane B. Kraft of the University of Kentucky College of Law, published in May 2011 in Bench and Bar.

It’s short. It’s sweet. You should read it.

She makes the case that in all writing (and especially in law), understatement is much more powerful than embellishment. She gives several examples and I urge you to check them all out.

I want to cite one of her examples that’s so common and so pernicious that I’ve probably made the mistake — perhaps in this very article.

She says that in a court document even a word as innocuous as “clearly” or “very”…

“…can have the unintended effect of prompting the reader wonder, ‘If it’s so clear, why are you and your opponent in court?’ or ‘Is a very large semi truck really any bigger than a large semi truck… and are there any small semi trucks?’”

She points out that these words are so overused that they are virtually meaningless.

And she’s right, of course. Worse, if even these minor exaggerations make our arguments fragile and suspect, what happens when we go even further? Inflate numbers? Exaggerate intent? Omit facts that run counter to our narrative?

Even when we are right (and of course, I always am!) we weaken our case when we do such things.

In the article, Diane Kraft makes an even stronger, and perhaps more important, claim. That when we understate the matter, we draw the reader/listener in. We accentuate our point, rather than obfuscate it with exaggeration.

I’ll share another of her examples, this one from cinema: How much more powerful (and quotable) a piece of writing was it to have Dirty Harry Callahan say, “Go ahead, make my day.” rather than, “Go ahead, you rotten scumbag, shoot that hostage so I can blow your brains out.”

As delivered, it’s a line we still quote to this day. If Clint had said the other, we probably wouldn’t even remember that movie.

So, I hope you’ll take my point (and confession) to heart. Speak plainly. Understate, rather than overstate. If you do, you’ll be much more persuasive.

I sincerely apologize to you, dear reader, for any hyperbole I’ve typed your way — and for all the hyperbole still to come. But I also promise to improve. Being aware of the defect is the first step to curbing it.

Naturally,

Adam

(I also apologize for the lateness of this post/email. I screwed up the scheduling time before I left Las Vegas for the weekend to attend the Libertarian Party of California’s state convention. Back home soon!)