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Sage Writing Advice from 1751

March 27, 2016 by gomarketing

If you think today’s emphasis on clear and concise writing is a rather recent, historically speaking, concern of good writers everywhere, think again.

Here is some sage advice from the Earl of Chesterfield in December 1751 to his illegitimate son, Phillip, after “setting the boy up in the world”:

“The first thing necessary in writing letters of business, is extreme clearness and perspicuity;
every paragraph should be so clear and unambiguous, that the dullest fellow in the world may
not be able to mistake it, nor obliged to read it twice in order to understand it. This necessary
clearness implies a correctness, without excluding an elegance of style. Tropes, figures,
antitheses, epigrams, etc., would be as misplaced and as impertinent in letters of business, as
they are sometimes (if judiciously used) proper and pleasing in familiar letters, upon common
and trite subjects. In business, an elegant simplicity, the result of care, not of labor, is required.”

(excerpt from The Atlantic, “How to Write a Business Letter: Advice From the 18th Century,” Shannon Chamberlain)

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