Hi,
What does the phrase "leave it to Al" mean?
It comes from the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Chapter 3 of the book talks about clutter in writing. The author begins with "Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds...", then he goes on to give many examples of clutter,
"Verbal camouflage reached new heights during General Alexander Haig's tenure as President Reagan's secretary of state. Before Haig nobody had thought of saying "at this juncture of maturization" to mean "now." He told the American people that terrorism could be fought with "meaningful sanctionary teeth" and that intermediate nuclear missiles were "at the vortex of cruciality." As for any worries that the public might harbor, his message was "leave it to Al," though what he actually said was:"We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation. I don't think there's much of a learning curve to be achieved in this area of content."
The funny part is that I could figure out what "We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation. I don't think there's much of a learning curve to be achieved in this area of content", but don't see how "leave it to Al" means the same thing!! Hahaha
Thanks for your help!
BTW, I never thought I could enjoy reading a book that teaches writing so much!! And it is good to everybody.
What does the phrase "leave it to Al" mean?
It comes from the book On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Chapter 3 of the book talks about clutter in writing. The author begins with "Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds...", then he goes on to give many examples of clutter,
"Verbal camouflage reached new heights during General Alexander Haig's tenure as President Reagan's secretary of state. Before Haig nobody had thought of saying "at this juncture of maturization" to mean "now." He told the American people that terrorism could be fought with "meaningful sanctionary teeth" and that intermediate nuclear missiles were "at the vortex of cruciality." As for any worries that the public might harbor, his message was "leave it to Al," though what he actually said was:"We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation. I don't think there's much of a learning curve to be achieved in this area of content."
The funny part is that I could figure out what "We must push this to a lower decibel of public fixation. I don't think there's much of a learning curve to be achieved in this area of content", but don't see how "leave it to Al" means the same thing!! Hahaha
Thanks for your help!
BTW, I never thought I could enjoy reading a book that teaches writing so much!! And it is good to everybody.
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