There’s currently an interesting discussion going on on Ian Bogost’s blog about academic clichés like “I’d like to argue..”:

“Mumblespeak makes potentially interesting works unreadable, contributing to their esotericism. Good editing does not involve cutting material, but cutting chaff. I’d wager that the average scholarly book’s length could be reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 without removing any actual content. Such effort would do two things: first, it would reduce the size of books, making them more approachable, affordable, and legible to a broader readership. Second, it would incrementally reduce the costs of printing, since fewer pages costs less on a digital or an offset press.”

The comments to the post are also very worth-while.

(I’m planning on posting quotes and links more frequently, since Twitter is often too limited for this).