April, 2010
Alternative remedies – simple words for clearer business writing
It really does grate on me when I read letters, adverts, leaflets, or whatever, that sound like the written equivalent of a telephone voice. You know what I mean – when someone suddenly adopts a style they wouldn’t normally use. I think they do it to appear intelligent. However, it makes them sound dull and stilted. It also makes the copy pretty unpleasant and uninviting.
This is going to be a regular post (every two months). I’ll feature two words that are common culprits each post and give you some alternatives. Together we can rid business writing of these stodgy intruders!
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End apostrophe abuse
There I was tucking into my porridge, when a leaflet from my local leisure centre dropped through the door.
I like having something to read with my breakfast so I started to flick through it. There was a rather large ad on the back page (so a good, prominent position that most likely cost quite a bit) and the heading read:
“Wedding Video’s.”
Oh dear. Not a good start. Misplaced apostrophes are my bugbear and for the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone thinks it’s correct to use one in a plural. Reading further down the ad, I came across:
“Children’s Party’s”.
Breakfast now totally ruined, and indigestion setting in, I decided to write about apostrophe abuse again.
An ‘infestation’ of ‘inverted commas’
“Anything that causes you to over-react or under-react can control you, and often does,” reads the quote in the book I’m reading. It’s a book about improving productivity and the quote is absolutely correct. However, it was more relevant at the moment I read it than the author could possibly have imagined.
I found myself very much over-reacting to his over-use of quote marks. He’s wrapped them around anything and everything. On one page alone there are nine instances of totally unnecessary inverted commas. And the very fact I’ve bothered to count them shows I’m over-reacting, and that these seemingly innocuous little punctuation marks are indeed controlling me.
I find them distracting. They force me to pause and emphasise the framed word in a particular way and with a very particular voice in my head that I heartily dislike. So that (and counting the marks) means my productivity is slowed right down: the total opposite of the book’s point.
So when and where should quotation marks be used?
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It’s just so ironic
Let’s start with a little sing-song. All together now…
“It’s like rain on your wedding day
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take
And isn’t it ironic … don’t you think?”
Well, no actually I don’t. Bad luck – yes. Ironic – no. So when should you use the word ironic?
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Mind your language – setting your Word default to UK English
Making sure the language default in Word, or Pages if you’re a Mac user, is set for UK English isn’t about being patriotic. It’s about writing for your audience. If I were writing for an American audience, I would expect to use American spellings. So if you want to know how to eliminate those ‘z’s and other peculiar spellings.
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Does your CV get you noticed?
Guest post by Kate Walker, career transition consultant and CV expert
Did you know that on average a busy recruiter spends only 60 seconds reading your CV? Sad but true. Especially when you think of the blood, sweat and tears you spent writing it.
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Contractions don’t have to be painful
Why are people so afraid of contractions? I don’t mean contractions as experienced by mothers-to-be in labour. For goodness’ sake, people have every right to be afraid of that sort of contraction. Just thinking about them makes me wince and brings tears to my eyes. And I haven’t had children!Anyway, I digress and I’m feeling queasy so back to my point. The contractions I’m talking about are things like:
- it’s instead of it is
- you’ve rather than you have
- we’ve instead of we have
VW Blue Motion ad makes me green with envy – a great illustration of clear, simple, but creative copy
I love this ad for VW’s Blue Motion range. It ran on the London Underground and I’ve seen it at a couple of motorway service stations. I think it’s SO clever.
It perfectly illustrates the power of words when used well and creatively. The message is the economy of the Blue Motion range and it’s reflected by wonderfully economic copy.
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A few little words – why straplines matter
I spotted one of the most ill-considered company straplines I think I’ve ever seen the other day. I was on my way into Kingston when I noticed the logo on the van in front of me.‘National Clamps’, the jolly, bright yellow logo proclaimed.
But it was the line that cut through the logo that made me snort with derision. Written in a soft script typeface, to give it that human touch, was the phrase ‘We Care’. ‘National Clamps – We Care’? Do me a favour.
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Why bad business writing is like a cheap sandwich
It’s lunchtime on a lovely sunny summer’s day. You’ve taken your sandwich to the park and you sit down to enjoy it. You take your first bite. Disappointment follows very quickly.
Instead of being packed with big chunks of avocado, as the packaging promised, it’s stuffed with flavourless, boring ingredients that bulk it out. Things like limp lettuce, pointless mustard and cress, watery mayo, and soggy tomatoes. And hidden away somewhere in that lot is just a teeny tiny hint of avocado.
And that’s like bad business writing although, unlike our sandwich, it probably wouldn’t even tempt you in the first place.