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Categories: Blog, Grammar, Opinion

Apprentice runner-up shows she’s a smart cookie

Remember the furore when Apprentice runner-up Luisa Zissman decided it was simply too much effort to figure out where the apostrophe should go in the name of her new business, Bakers’ Toolkit?  Well, it seems that in the end she decided it was all too much bother and decided to ditch the apostrophe altogether.

The publicity-hungry candidate posed the question to her Twitter followers about where the apostrophe should go in her business’s new product,

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Categories: Blog, Grammar, Humour, Opinion

Press release puzzles journos

Our thanks to Private Eye for this example of bureaucratic gibberish from a council press release. It states:  “East Renfrewshire Council is to bring forward its review of orders process and will commence immediately to assess area orders on a prioritised basis before implementing the full statutory process which the review of the orders will require.”  It is believed to refer to new parking arrangements but, as the magazine wryly noted, who can say?

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Categories: Blog, Humour, News, Opinion

Police force murders the English language

It had to happen.  In today’s news we learn of a new phenomenon: ‘ploddledygook’, a term coined by the Plain English Campaign specifically to describe gibberish produced by police forces.  The Avon & Somerset force seems to have taken its cue from corporate gobbledygook when producing a guide on how to write entries for its annual Problem Solving Awards. Their advice is so unintelligible that police officers can’t understand the instructions!

The force’s internal website includes such gems as: “Follow the problem-solving mythology as a supportive framework to work the problem through: Understand where the drivers and demand originated;

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Categories: Blog, Grammar, Opinion, Tips

Calling time on cliches

 

Are clichés ‘a gift from the gods’ or something to ‘avoid like the plague’? The answer, it may surprise you to know, is “it’s not black and white”. Used sparingly (and appropriately), a cliché can be a shortcut to understanding. But things begin to go wrong when people overuse them, littering entire paragraphs with these stale phrases like… well, confetti.

The grammarian Eric Partridge identified four types of cliché:

  1. The expression that has been used so indiscriminately it has lost its meaning.

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Categories: Blog, Grammar, Opinion

Apostrophes hit the headlines

Apostrophes were back in the news again recently when a council became the first in Britain to vote on whether to drive the much-abused apostrophe off Devon’s streets. Mid-Devon District Council claimed that abolishing the apostrophe from road and street names would eliminate “confusion” – although it failed to explain precisely what confusion the humble punctuation mark has caused.

Fortunately, the proposal met with heated opposition from defenders of the English language and the council was forced to back down.

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Categories: Blog, Opinion

When political correctness goes too far

Political correctness (or PC, as it is known) originated as something of a joke – quite literally, as it was created in a comic strip – and still has overtones of the totalitarian thinking that featured in the novel 1984.  It has laudably eradicated many examples of stigmatising, dehumanising and downright offensive terminology that used to be commonplace such as ‘cripple’, ‘half caste’ and ‘OAP’, yet many now believe it has gone too far.

The PC brigade comes in for particular ridicule for its extreme attempts to make language non-sexist.

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Categories: Blog, Opinion

Tell it like it is

The Times journalist Carol Midgley is a woman after my own heart. The plain-speaking writer despises the use of “windy verbiage” by businesses, which she suspects often hides the mediocrity of their products and services.  Jargon such as “geographic footprint” and “backended processes” come in for attack, as does the frequently unnecessary use of the word “solutions”. She cites as an example a product described by a food company as a “breakfast solution” – in the real world we know it as ‘toast’.

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Categories: Blog, Opinion, Tips

Ditch the hype

Analysis of a selection of press releases has identified the 25 most overused words and phrases in business communications today. The survey by PR News Online reveals that “exclusive”, “groundbreaking” and “unprecedented” are among the words that crop up so often that they have now lost their value and meaning. Here’s that list in full:

  1. Announced
  2. Authentic
  3. Award-winning
  4. Best-of-breed
  5. Cross platform
  6. Cutting-edge
  7. Exciting
  8. Exclusive
  9. Groundbreaking
  10. Impact
  11. Improved
  12. Innovative
  13. Launched
  14. Leader/leading
  15. Leverage
  16. Next generation
  17. New
  18. Proactive
  19. Proud to announce
  20. Revolutionary
  21. Solution
  22. State-of-the-art
  23. Unprecedented
  24. Up-and-coming
  25. Unique

It’s important to remember that in press releases,

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Categories: Blog, Humour, News, Opinion

‘Omnishambles’ named Word of the Year 2012

Thrilled to see in the news this morning that ‘omnishambles’ – possibly one of my favourite words of all time – has now been officially named UK Word of the Year by the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Coined by the excellent political satire (or possibly documentary) ‘The Thick of It’, to describe a collection of government blunders, it has fast evolved to describe any situation that has been utterly and comprehensively mismanaged. Not only has it spawned its own adjective –

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Categories: Blog, Grammar, Opinion, Tips

Considering Google AdWords? Read this first!

This week, Hertfordshire copywriter Mel Silver is temporarily forsaking her usual tips on good grammar and punctuation to bring you a guest post from the fabulously well-informed pay per click expert June Cory of MyMustard on how to make Google AdWords work for you. Enjoy!

“Last year I spent £500,000 of my clients’ budgets and turned it into £10million of new revenue for them. That’s the power of AdWords – when it’s done properly.

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