The other day someone sent me an excerpt of an email she received. It said “Hereunto attached is the file I’ll be referencing in our conversation later today.” My response to her was, “You’re kidding me, right?”
Here are a few reasons that sentence is, well, horrible:
· Hereunto is pompous, archaic legalese
· Hereunto means “to this” (So, the writer is saying “To this attached is the file…” That may be okay for Yoda, but it is not acceptable for our business email.)
· The entire sentence is far too wordy. (How about: “I’ve attached the file I’ll be referencing later”? That is straight and to the point.)
The highfalutin, overly formal language the writer chose often backfires. Rather than seeming fancy and well-educated, the overall message is masked with the misuse of a term that throws the reader off from the start. Our job is to make things clear to our audience, not hide the message in awkward phrasing.
Here are a few terms you should avoid unless you are a lawyer:
| Archaic Word | Alternate Wording |
| aforementioned | mentioned previously |
| foregoing | preceding |
| forthwith | immediately |
| henceforth (henceforward) | from this point on |
| hereafter | after this; from now on; in the future |
| hereinafter | in the following part (of this note, letter, document) |
| heretofore | until this time; before now |
| hereunto | to this |
| herewith | with this (included with a note, letter, document) |
| hitherto | until now; before this time |
| thereafter | after that |
| therewith | with that |
| whatsoever | whatever |
| wherein | in what; in what way |
| whereinto | into which |
| whereof | with; by which |
| Whereon | on what; on which |
| wheresoever | wherever |
| whosoever | whoever |
Alternate wording courtesy of the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Happy Friday!
Kara Church
Senior Technical Editor
619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773
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