The Wednesday Word Wise Roundup

• Every once in a while I think I’m a huge fraud – sure I can write, but what’s the big deal? I have friends who are doctors who remove spleens and lawyers who sue Fortune 500 companies and Shakespeare scholars who use words like “interiority” and museum curators who can talk with brio about Titian, Tintoretto, and Tiepolo, and all I can do is string together a couple of words without tripping. But then I read something like this from last Sunday's New York Times and I feel better – in a survey of human resources executives conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a big out-placement firm, it’s not high-tech talent that’s wanting, but low-tech skills like writing. According to the Times, "Nearly half said entry-level workers lacked writing skills. It seems that some young employees are now guilty of the technological equivalent of wearing flip-flops: they are writing company e-mail as if they were texting cellphone messages with their thumbs.... In response, employers are sending a message of their own: When you’re in the office, put on those dress shoes and start spelling your words correctly, and in full.”

• About 18 months ago I heard that a colleague in another city had developed a class about how to write e-mail for our in-house university. I thought, “huh?” A class about e-mail. Er, what’s the challenge? But then I started talking to friends and colleagues and learned, in fact, that no one seems to know how to write a decent e-mail. I developed my own class and it’s become the most popular I teach. So I was interested to read this article in the September Fast Company about the next generation of messaging, Twitter and all the Twitter-like services. Seems we in PR are missing the boat and whoever gets on board fastest will float to the top soonest. I’m already developing my “how to write a Twitter post in 140 characters or less” class. Stay tuned.

• Last Saturday The Times (London) ran a special section in its book review pages called Wordwise (as opposed to what you’re reading now, Word Wise), similar to what I’ve in the past headlined “Which Word When.” While most words it explored aren’t words we use too often or confuse too easily (for example, biceps, fulsome, and pence) and overall it has a British sensibility that may not work for those in the United States, it’s still worth checking out.

Comments

[JP]

Couldn't agree with you more that e-mail writing has emerged as a discipline that everyone should receive instruction in. I just finished reading "Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home," by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/review/Barry.t.html?ex=1188532800&en=da024adc6cece3e1&ei=5070), and found it a tremendously insightful tome on the art of e-mail.

Just out of interest, is your e-mail class open to people outside Edelman? I, for one, would be interested in sitting in.

[Patricia]

Shouldn't it be "whoever" gets on board first (second bullet point)?

[Trey Reeme]

Ignoring email etiquette isn't isolated to young employees, of course. Don't forget the executives with email signatures similar to the following? "Sent from xxx's Blackberry with its ridiculously small keys, hence the typos."

BTW, Twitter rocks.

[Dan Santow]

JP, the class I referred to is something I teach as part of my company's in-house university and is available to our employees only.

Trey, I'm occasionaly stumped by the whoever/whomever thing (I'm human after all - well, to everyone but my mother, to whom I'm super-human). In this case, you are correct, and as you can see in the post, I've amended it. Thank you for your close reading.

[Trey Reeme]

The whoever point was totally Patricia. But... whoever. ;)

[Patricia]

Thanks for the props, Trey. (p.s., I just visited your Twitter page; you are right -- The Double IS a great book. Have you read any Paul Auster?)

[Lisa Braithwaite]

Rowan Manahan at Fortify Your Oasis wrote about your first point the other day in his post on the next generation of job hunters. Pretty scary.

http://fortifyservices.blogspot.com/2007/08/next-geneeration-of-job-hunters.html