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Not the GP, but I'm an avid reader. One of the books I read (Strunk & White's Elements of Style) had this to say to aspiring writers: "Omit needles words."
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I think the point is that some of the extra words OP is complaining about aren't needless. It's on the writer to know their audience, but it's also asking a lot to tune a message in a PR review to the one particular person who demands bluntness, especially if they don't know that person well. If the majority of people in the organization respond positively to a certain style (which may involve some amount of phatic speech), then the person who is "over-writing" here is probably making a good decision.

Once I build rapport with someone, I tend to be more blunt, but still balance that with the fact that other people may be reading the interaction, and I don't want to model a rude communication style.

An organization can choose to promote a very direct approach to feedback (Bridgewater is famous for this), but it requires top-down work to get everyone on the same page, not just expecting one developer to mind-read another.


Nobody is advocating for a rude communication style; the disagreement is over what constitutes rudeness.

Some people/cultures see being blunt or to the point as rude.

Others see beating around the bush, wasting time and hogging the listener's brain space with fill material that serves no purpose other than delaying the actual closure/completion of the thought (including insisting on various rituals, either verbal or, in some cases, physical, such as drinking a cup of tea (or coffee) and not broaching the actual subject until both parties have finished drinking), or perhaps (though I suspect this is less common as an actual motivation than generally supposed) taking pains to respect the imagined feeling of the listener, and possibly most importantly, to reaffirm the social hierarchy, as rude.

It's just a difference of perspective.


Nicely put. I like the worked example in para 2. :-)

Tell me, did you ever watch Yes, Minister or Yes, Prime Minister?

If not, I think you might enjoy them.



Dang! A typo, a typo; I do confess't.

One will note that the book, while short, contained more than that one sentence.

Indeed. And all of them, iirc, to the point.



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