Word Wise

Like, d'oh!

In honor of this weekend’s premiere of the long-awaited “Simpsons Movie” in the U.S., I’m renaming what I used to call “like, duh! moments” – those lines in press releases that say “a new survey from Client X shows that 89 percent of people prefer their lawns weed-free” or “78 percent of people say that during the holiday season they clean their bathrooms before guests arrive.” They are now officially “like, d’oh! moments.”  (I’m more interested to know that 11 percent of people don’t prefer their lawns weed-free and that 22 percent of people don’t mind their guests seeing their grimy, filmy bathroom sinks and uncapped half-used tubes of drugstore-brand personal hygiene products strewn about their moldy vanity.) As silly as they are – like, d’oh! – these pieces of information so obvious that no one could possibly dispute them are all too commonly used in our profession. And while they’re not always from surveys – I’ve read “like d’oh moments” coming out of the mouths of CEOs and celebrities and from the omniscient voice of a document’s writer – the fact is, they often are. Now, I happen to like surveys when they tell me something surprising or quirky or downright appalling, and I’m at peace with the idea that we build news from their results (it is news, after all, if we learn that only 5 percent of people like their nose or that 94 percent of moms would rather get a Brazilian bikini wax than pick up their kids at pre-school). But when we try to build news off “like d’oh moments,” it not only sullies our soul, but makes it damn hard to write a compelling press release or media alert or whatever. There are a few ways to get around this: Burp up the Kool-Aid you drank that caused you to believe people will think it’s interesting that 92 percent of respondents agree that "murder is bad" when murder has been bad, at least among polite company, since Day One (if you don't believe me, ask God or god or Buddha or Allah or Bhagavan or Obatala or Aditinggi or whomever it is you're worshipping these days)  Help write compelling, surprising survey questions that will elicit equally surprising responses that will both serve your client well and attract the right kind of media attention  In advance, come to an agreement with your client that if the survey results are a snore they won’t be used – in other words, have a relationship with your client in which you can say, “gheesh, this is stupid – we’re not really going to use this, are we?” (I’ve been in several situations where we all agree the results are newsless yet, I’m told, we have to use them anyhow because “the client paid for them” – that’s not doing the client any favors.) Lastly, remember these immortal words of Homer Simpson: "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14 percent of people know that.” Like, duh? Like, d'oh!

The New 2007 AP Stylebook – 'Female' is In, 'Pupil' is Out, and Pluto's Been Demoted

I received my new 2007 Associated Press Stylebook this week, which just became available (forget Vogue; in the U.S., this is the style bible for those of us in communications). While I’m not exactly running home to cozy up on the couch with it and a comfy cup of hot cocoa, it’s still interesting to see what’s in and what's out and this year’s style dos and don’ts. For instance, since time immemorial the guide directed writers to use the word “pupil” for children kindergarten through eighth grade and “student” for ninth graders on up. This year it dropped “pupil.” Ok, but what does that mean? Is my sixth-grader niece Daisy no longer a pupil? She’ll be sad to learn that. It says something about our era, too, that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (which, since 1874, has been trying to ban martinis, mojitos, and margaritas, among other things) has gone the way of the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. That is, it’s been deleted.  The stylebook’s additions this year also speak to the world in which we live (and about which we write). New entries include: airstrike BlackBerry (both Bs uppercase) farmers market (note it’s a market of farmers, not a market belonging to farmers) female (yes, female, which is now the “preferred adjective, not woman”) GPS hip-hop intefedah Islamic holy days Katmandu merger Swift boat (AP adds this less than four years after it entered the vernacular during the last presidential election but waits decades to add “hip-hop”? What’s that about?) Among changes and updates, the “planets” entry was changed to include Pluto’s demotion to “dwarf planet”; what had been R.S.V.P.” is now an un-perioded RSVP for some unexplained reason; and the editors woke up one morning and decided to hyphenate “daylight-saving time” (though they’re adamant it’s not “daylight-savings time”).  Like any style compendium, the AP Stylebook reflects not only the times, but the tastes, attitudes and priorities of its editors and publisher. So while I’m cuckoo-crazy for it, none of us should be slaves to it. Good writing demands we follow a uniform set of rules. Great writing demands we know when to break them.

Note: Do you need to buy a new AP Stylebook every year? If you’re a reporter, maybe. But if you’re in PR and marketing, no, not really. There just aren‘t that many differences year to year. Save the $17.95. I buy a new one every three or four years and that seems to be a sufficient interval.

Talk to the Hand, Part Dos

Once again, readers around the world had their own additions to the list of words they think should be expunged from our writing. Some people feel very strongly about them!  From mike: The compulsion for people or organizations to refer to themselves as "leading" is generally quite absurd, but there's one that gets me even more: Every time I see the word "leverage" – unless its in the context of physics – I throw up a little in my mouth. From Robert: Maximized / maximum From Virginia: horrific From Lisa: Ugh - leverage. And "monetize." That one really gets under my skin. From Veronica: Synergistic and its root, synergy, are the ones that make me gag the most. I have a client who leans on them and it drives me nuts. Plus, both words always remind me of the 1980s cartoon Jem, in which the main characters, an all-girl rock band, frequently said "Showtime, Synergy!" It definitely makes it harder to take seriously and documents that include those words. From mochalala: What I've been wondering about lately is the new (over)use of the phrases "speak to," as in "I can speak to that" and "cover off," as in "I think I've covered off answers to all of your questions." Where did this come from? I'd never heard it before I started working with a big company. From trollop23: micro and macro anything drive me crazy. From Suchitra: May I take the liberty of adding "end-to-end" to your list? I think it is one of the most abused words in this part of the world. (Asia Pacific) From ben: The ones I have banned from my startup company are: "play," as in "it's a xxxx play" and "landscape," as in "we're in a competitive landscape." From Glenn: The next time I hear "best-of-breed" used to describe anything but a dog, I'm going to scream! From Jed: I would add "impact" to the list as it is horribly overused.

Talk to the Hand Because the Face Ain't Listening

The power of words comes, in part, from their meaning and from their placement within sentences and phrases. It also comes from the integrity with which they’re being used. In public relations, advertising and marketing, we’re especially susceptible to latching onto of-the-moment words and using them and using them and using them until they’re used to death (their meaning and power dies). Half the time we use these words it’s because we have no idea what the heck we’re talking about in the first place. Here’s my abridged list of words that have fallen into that death trap. They’ve become so overused and misused that they’ve lost whatever powers of description they had to begin with. To use them today and expect them to have an impact is simply laughable. seamless / seamlessly integrated unique soared synergistic robust solutions turnkey best-of-breed mission critical leading interactive value-added utilize highly-seasoned facilitate strategic leverage proactive empowered organic growth best practice granular bandwidth industry-leading next-generation world-class unmatched innovative paradigm / paradigm-shifting revolutionary wide-ranging solution provider integrated thought-provoking win-win If every time you’re about to use one of these words you stop and force yourself to think of a new way of saying whatever it is you want to say, a) you’ll be doing the world a favor; b) you’ll force yourself to think about what it is you really want to say; and c) your writing will be more vivid, more true, and far more compelling.

Note: You can almost feel it when a word or phrase is slipping into the mire of meaninglessness. Watch for these to soon fall off the cliff: green, sustainable and value proposition. Any others you can think of?

Which Word When, Part IV

I received a fair number of other people’s pet peeves after last week’s third installment of “Which Word When” appeared. Here are a few of them: From “bcollins”: “reluctant” / “reticent” Reticence is a form of reluctance, but reluctance is not a form of reticence. The Columbia Journalism Review notes that “reticence” refers to “reluctance to speak up or come forward; silence; reserve” and is “commonly followed by a word or phrase meaning ‘concerning.’” “Brian was reticent about speaking to the authorities.” “Reluctant” refers more to someone who is hesitant or to act or to someone who has unwillingly assumed a role, as in “Brian wasn’t reluctant to save the damsel in distress, but was uninterested in accepting the award she offered afterwards. He was, she said, ‘my reluctant hero.’” From “carol”: “snuck” / “sneaked” While purist may scoff at “snuck” when used in lieu of the more traditional “sneaked,” according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, “the past and past participle ‘snuck’ has risen to the status of standard and to approximate equality with ‘sneaked.’” That said, it becomes a matter of preference. From “carol”: “diffuse” / “defuse” “Defuse” is composed of a prefix, “de,” which means to take away or reduce, and the noun “fuse,” which is an electrical safety device. Taken generally, “defuse” means to halt the impact of a dangerous situation. “Carol defused the tension when she stopped the boys from fighting.” “Diffuse,” from the Latin diffundere, means to pour out or spread something around. “Carol diffused the information to the crowd.” From my brother “loren”: “quash” / “squash” The most obvious response is that squash is a vegetable and quash isn’t (if only life was that simple). When you quash something, you use force or intimidation to suppress (or defuse) a situation. Quash is from the Old French word quasser, meaning “annul,” and from the Latin cassus, “‘null, void.” When you squash something, think about squishing it – you’re stamping it out. “The heckler quashed any chance of hearing her speak, and the rebellion that followed was squashed by the riot police.” From “dena”: “regardless” / “irregardless” Wikipedia says that “irregardless” may be a  blend of “irrespective” and “regardless” and that it was first acknowledged in 1912 by the Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary as originating from western Indiana. Despite its alleged Hoosier provenance, as the AP Stylebook notes, irregardless is a double negative. Regardless is correct. From “nikki”: “appraise” / “apprise” "Nikki apprised everyone of the situation regarding the auction, then appraised the value of the objects being sold.” In other words, she told everyone about what was going on (she apprised them) and then put a value on the merchandise (she appraised it).

Which Word When, Part III

About six months ago I wrote about a half dozen pairs of words I see regularly misused (some would say abused) and then followed up quickly with Part II, since I received so many additional suggestions. Since then I’ve continued to receive e-mails from across the world (really!) that have more or less said, “here’s my pet peeve, when people use X when they mean Y. Heeeelp!” Some misuse is due more to negligence, I think (like you/you’re, it’s/its), than ignorance, but in any case, we owe it to ourselves and to our employers and to our clients to use the right words at the right time to affect the right effect. “discrete” / “discreet” When something is "discreet," like what you do behind closed doors and on your own time, it’s "marked by prudence or modesty and wise self-restraint." But when things are "discrete," they’re separate and distinct, like the branches of government, your summer and winter wardrobes, and your doors, behind which, well, you know, you’re being discreet. “then” / “than” Use "then" when one thing follows or results from another. Romeo to Friar Laurence: Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set/On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine. Use "than" when comparing and contrasting. As the prince says at the conclusion of “Romeo and Juliet”: For never was a story of more woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. “home” / “hone” We all live in homes (some nicer than others), but "home" is a verb, as well, that means “to proceed or direct attention toward an objective.” "Hone," on the other hand, means “to make sharper or more focused,” as we do with our skills. We don’t hone in on something, we home in on it. “champ” / “chomp” If you’re "champing" at the bit, even if you’re not a horse, you’re displaying impatience; if you’re "chomping" on hay, you’re chewing it, often noisily and, hopefully in this case, you are a horse because, frankly, you’re acting like an animal. “entitled” / “titled” "Entitled" means to have a right to something; "titled" refers to the name of something. Hotelier Leona Helmsley thought she was entitled to forgo taxes. “Only the little people pay taxes,” she said. The television movie about her life was titled “The Queen of Mean.” “compose” / “comprise”  "Compose" means to create or put together. "Comprise" means to be made up of. "Comprised of" is redundant (you wouldn’t say “included of,” would you?). A cosmopolitan, which I could use about now, is composed of vodka, Cointreau or triple sec, cranberry juice, and lime juice; a cosmopolitan comprises these four ingredients.