Tuesday August 14, 2012
Kindly be advised
By ALISTAIR KING
This week’s Mind Our English column on business writing considers the situation when you need to write a circular notifying the other party/parties of something. Would you write this?
Kindly be advised that we are moving our sales department to new premises, as noted below:
Please be informed of our updated operating instructions, as follows:
Please don’t! As we have noted before, the Passive Voice does not work well in correspondence. To tell some one to be informed or to be advised (kindly or otherwise) is strange because this places the reader in a situation in which he/she does nothing but await the informing or advising. This is a convoluted way of telling the reader to note something!
Yet, I am constantly receiving e-mails requesting of me that I be informed or advised.
On office notice-boards, employees are likewise instructed to be informed or advised, as in: Kindly be advised that there will be a fire drill at 11am on Wednesday. Why not reduce both the verbosity and the indirectness by writing: There will be a fire drill at 11am on Wednesday.
“Oh,” but you might say “we want to sound polite, hence the kindly.” Is kindly really polite? Isn’t it one of those supercilious words like hereby, which are difficult to say without the nose pointing high in the air? Are we really expressing kindness when we write kindly? Definitely, courtesy is important, so use “please” and also be direct:
Please note that we are moving ...
Please note our updated ...
Please note that there will be a fire drill ...
To tell the reader to “Please note ...” is much more communicative than telling the reader to “Kindly be advised ...”
Now, what about ... as noted below? It is extremely common. However, it is completely unnecessary, as is ... as follows.
Remember that, when reading a page in the English language, the reader starts at the top of the page and gradually moves down the page; the reader notes what is below without having to be directed there.
I received a document recently containing this line: “Our findings are hereunder tabulated as follows:”
This is grim! The archaic word hereunder and the phrase as follows mean the same. Furthermore, both of them can be omitted and the reader will still know where to look.
I could quite clearly see that the findings were in tabular form, so the result was multiple redundancy! The colon is a useful punctuation device as it tells the reader to look down (just in case he/she is tempted to look elsewhere!) The writer could have saved a lot of ink by writing “Findings:”!
The first two examples can be improved in this way:
Please note our new sales department address:
Please note our updated operating instructions:
Be clear! Be concise! Be communicative!
■ Dr Alistair King is an Applied Linguist and Corporate Training Consultant with clients throughout the region, the Middle East and Southern Africa. He would value feedback to: alistair@aksb.com.my / http://www.aksb.com.my
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