＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
(Reference) Original article in Japanese
・電通のコピーライター橋口幸生氏の「言葉ダイエット」という本をご紹介します！
When I hear the term “copywriter,” the first name that comes to mind for baby boomers like myself is Shigesato Itoi (born 1948). Incidentally, his wife is Kanako Higuchi, one of my favorite actresses.
Here are some of his catchphrases:
“You’re making me dizzy.” (Kanebo Cosmetics)
“Eat, sleep, play.” (Nissan Cefiro)
“I want to be romantic.” (Suntory Red)
1. Yukio Hashiguchi’s “Word Diet”
Incidentally, Yukio Hashiguchi, a renowned copywriter at Dentsu, recently published an interesting book titled “Word Diet: The Ultimate Writing Technique That Will Transform Emails, Proposals, and Job Hunting.”
This time, I’ll introduce the contents of this book, “Word Diet.” The concept seems to be “Say goodbye to rambling sentences, and make your writing muscular by removing modifiers.”
2. What is Writing?
He argues that “writing is more about ‘erasing’ than simply writing.”
This makes sense when you consider the premise that “the reader doesn’t want to read your writing.”
3. Things to Avoid in “Word Diet”
(1) Avoid abstract expressions
(2) Avoid excessive use of modifiers
(3) Avoid using katakana words
(4) Avoid redundant expressions
(5) Avoid excessive honorifics
(6) Define terms precisely; ambiguity is unacceptable
(7) Avoid excessive use of “this” and “that”
(8) Maintain consistency in the use of punctuation marks
(9) Avoid excessive use of commas
(10) Avoid repetition of sentence-ending expressions
4. Points to Note in “Word Diet”
(1) Keep each sentence under 40 characters.
(2) Include a discovery in each sentence.
① Objective discoveries: Data and facts
② Subjective discoveries: Based on personal experience, etc.
5. Steps for “Word Diet”
(1) Expand
(2) Divide
(3) Select
(4) Finish
Indeed, when browsing the many books overflowing in bookstores, you’ll notice an abundance of books that are “completely unclear in their conclusion” or “books that claim to be grand predictions but end up with only vague predictions.”
The authors of “books that are completely unclear in their conclusion” probably don’t even know their own conclusions. “Books that claim to be grand predictions but end up with only vague predictions” seem to list various possibilities, setting up a safety net for when the predictions are wrong if the preconditions are incorrect, and “hedging their bets to avoid criticism if the predictions are wrong.”
Yukio Hashiguchi’s “Word Diet” is essentially very similar to the arguments of Yasunobu Tanaka, author of “Just Write What You Want to Read.” Yasunobu Tanaka is also a former copywriter at Dentsu.
Furthermore, Yukichi Fukuzawa advised, “Write in a way that even a monkey can understand.” This idea—that it’s best to write in simple language that anyone can understand rather than making it difficult to comprehend—seems to have something in common with this “Word Diet.”