Tag: Working Well With Words

Prefer “tell” or “inform”. “To acquaint oneself” is to “find out”, and “to be acquainted with something” is to “know” it. “Acquaint” is a starchy word.

You can replace “according to our records” by “our records show”, and it is simpler and more direct to do so.

Do not use this expression where “grant”, “allow”, “agree”, or “consent” will do. To “accede to someone’s demands” may imply a yielding of one’s own wishes in giving consent, but that is not what most writers of officialese mean by it.