Wednesday, 19 December 2007
The It Problem
While enduring the annual Christmas shopping battle, I’ve seen quite a few shop windows and brochures announcing “Its Christmas.” In my writer brain, I wonder who or what "it" is and what "it" has to do with Christmas.
English is a weird and wonderful language with all sorts of strange quirks. Most of us know an apostrophe either shows possession or a contraction. We write “Jim’s shoes” to show ownership or “there’s the cat” when contracting ‘there is’. But "it" is different - we write “its” for the possessive and “it’s” for the contraction.
When you next start to ponder whether you should use "its" or "it’s", try rewriting or saying the sentence aloud without using the contraction or stating who owns what. For example, if you want to say “it is Christmas”, you write “it’s Christmas”. If you want to say “it owns that present,” you write “its Christmas present”.
I still don’t know who it is, but I hope they have a great Christmas and you do too.
Labels: business writing, grammar, spelling, writing for business
Thursday, 6 December 2007
A Short Rant on Spelling
I was telling someone about this and they told me about a small bank that had spelt mortgage "morrtgage". (Thanks Adam!) Would I go with a mortgage broker who couldn't spell mortgage? Er... no. Why would I trust a firm that doesn't care enough to spell their service correctly with my financial future?
In the grand scheme of things, no one will be damned to hell for poor spelling. But if you're going to pay someone to write something for you, especially if it's going to be plastered all over your front window, your website, or your brochure, you should make sure they can.
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Wonder Words of Wisdom
If you want to sell anything, including yourself as a potential partner, you need to send the right message. And communicating your message means you need the right words.
This doesn't mean you should reach for your thesaurus. In fact, it's better to use everyday words the average person understands if you want reach as many potential leads as possible.
While everyone wants to use the right words, many businesses use the wrong ones. The example below shows how not to do it. As you'll see, the wrong words are confusing, vague and overly complex. They will leave the reader uncertain about what you do or what you can do for them.
Imagine you received a brochure from X Financial Planners. The brochure contains photos of serious men in suits pointing at whiteboards, contact details for the firm, and only one sentence about the business. That sentence is:
"X Financial Planners utilise their expertise in financial management counselling strategies to deliver an effective and efficient solution that can be easily implemented for immediate cost benefits."
It almost sounds impressive, doesn't it? But there's no compelling reason for anyone to choose X Financial Planners because there are too many abstract words and no clear message.
Abstract words (such as utilise, efficient, effective, solution) have become clichés and few people take notice of them or even believe them anymore. You should aim to use these words as little as possible and focus on communicating your message as simply and clearly.
How do you weed out abstract words? First, read your sentences and circle any words which don't have a clear meaning – adjectives are a good place to start. Then try to rewrite each sentence using a simple word or phrase. For example, 'cost benefits' is saving money.
Eliminate as many as of these words as you can and you'll ensure you get the right message across.
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