For Column Writing: Use the Written not the Spoken Language

How do newspapers select their columnists?

Now and then we read of columnists writing as though they are lecturing in a classroom or anchoring their program on television. The language is quite of the spoken kind.

Hence, one can read of expressions like, “Let me give you some realizations...” “Do (sic) you know that so and so...” “Don’t get me wrong,” “Here’s the deal...” Yes, I’m quoting from someone’s column that talks of business in a broadsheet. I have just read it and it prompted my topic today.

These expressions are not to be found in clear effective writing. These are a lot of clutter. Ideally, you go straight to the point without such unnecessary baggage.

Columnists are more of writers than speakers since they are being read, not heard. It is then expected that they come up to the level of writers, hence should follow principles in effective writing.

Does the name Inday Badiday ring a bell to you? Inday was known as Philippine television's "queen of showbiz talk.”  “Ate Luds” or Lourdes Jimenez Carvajal is a talker all right, but when she writes her column, she does not use spoken language. Her column comes out as a work or art - a careful piece carved out by a careful writer.

I loved to read Inday’s columns not for the gossip but for the way she expressed things. Her flair for literary expression is not surprising. She is the younger sister of Letty Jimenez- Magsanoc, former editor-in-chief of the Sunday Inquirer.