When we write like robots

I saw a trailer for a movie the other day, and it had one line that whacked me in the head:

One character says to another: “We thank you for your support.”

The line is delivered for laughs, with a syrupy delivery that no normal person would ever use with another normal person — the stilted wording making it clearly a rather savage form of sarcasm.

It whacked me because I see those exact words and similar ones all the time. Said in all sincerity by nonprofits I respect.

I’ve written phrases like that myself: That clueless, awkward, not-quite-human language that just pours so easily from our mouths because we’ve heard it before and it’s what you do.

You wouldn’t say something so stilted to a person you know. You’d say something friendly, natural, colloquial.

That movie scene is really bothering me.

So I’m making a vow, and you can join me if you’d like:

I will always do my best not to put in writing something that would make me sound like a robot if I said it in person.

I’ll check for that kind of garbage writing by reading my stuff aloud and keeping a human listener in my mind.

Because being human is part of the job. Sounding like a robot is a lazy lapse that shouldn’t go beyond our first drafts.