They Call Me Mr. Bombastic

This is the kind of needlessly fluent, pompous language that makes simple concepts overly difficult to understand:

The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] defines Aeronautical Decision-Making as a “Systematic approach to the mental process of evaluating a given set of circumstance[sic] and determining the best course of action.”

This sentence is not one that will flow easily through the brain. There’s guaranteed to be a few mental potholes and speed bumps as this tormented sentence stumbles its way through the eyes and up the brain. “Em, Syste-what now?”

Imagine reading sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph of this convoluted English and bureaucratese? I’m tired just imagining about it. Let’s try editing it down to size for comprehension, why don’t we—bear in mind I’m no editor, I’m just confused:

Here’s the FAA’s again:

Systematic approach to the mental process of evaluating a given set of circumstances and determining the best course of action.

Let’s start cutting out the superfluous words:

Systematic approach to the mental process of evaluating a given set of circumstances and determining the best course of action.

I’m still determined to simplify it a bit further. Circumstances is such a gigantic oaf of a word, isn’t it? How about:

A process of evaluating a situation and determining the best course of action.

I still think I could strip out a few words and still keep the idea intact and less wordy. Let’s try this:

A process of evaluating a situation and determining the best action.

There, how about that? Doesn’t it make a tad more sense? By cutting out the grandiose terms and keeping it simple, anyone indeed can read that sentence and come away with a pretty good idea of what the FAA (should have) meant when whichever drone of a technical writer they employed composed that tortured definition.

I charge $300 an hour, FAA.