Watch out, language offenders

Continuing on with writing advice...

I found this Media Orchard guest post on 10 dumb things that smart communicators do very helpful. We all make mistakes, right? Yes, all of us. Even the trained professionals.

Honestly, I've been a repeat offender of at least half of these, including:

Using unnecessary business jargon

It's easy to slip into the "corporate speak," even when your purpose is to be easily understood.

Capitalizing names of industries and non-proper nouns

I think more people commit this faux-pas than not! I didn't even know this was a common communicator mistake. Do we often confuse key words with proper nouns? I often find myself capitalizing titles or professions merely because they feel "important."

Putting more than four bullet points on a PowerPoint slide!

This one's big. As communicators, we want to be informative. So informative that we sometimes give too much information, especially when the medium focus is aesthetic, like a presentation slide.

Here are a few more common communication gaffes:

Use an incorrect homonym

The differences between there/their/they're and your/you're have been drilled into our heads since grade school, but I still see university journalism students (smart communicators) commit this sin.

Referring to a company by a plural pronoun

Example: The XYZ Company is based in Eugene, Ore. They specialize in...

I still catch myself on this one sometimes. A company (a single entity) should always be "it."


What mistakes do you see smart communicators make?

Advice from the masters

Whenever I'm asked who my favorite writer is, I refuse to give a definitive answer.

The reason? I have two: Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemingway. They both had the ability to convey so much by saying so little.

Asking me to choose between the two is like asking a 6-year-old to choose between cake and ice cream at a birthday party. The 6-year-old and I will both perplexedly respond, "Can't I have both?"

When I read my new favorite writing blog this morning, I was ecstatic to find an archived post about Hemingway's Top 5 Tips on Writing Well. I agree with author Brian Clark that there's no better figure for marketing writers to emulate. In the media industry, every line is money and space is limited.

Hemingway excelled at the challenge of writing an entire story in just six words:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

He would be a modern copy editor's dream (it's short and sticky).

The one Hemingway tip I hadn't heard of is to be positive. If you're familiar with Hemingway's life (particularly the latter half), you're probably chuckling. What he meant was to carefully choose words that describe what something is, not what it isn't. If you tell your friend something is "painless," she will still focus on the word "pain." A better choice would be "comfortable."

The content of this post reminded me of Vonnegut's "How to Write with Style." Vonnegut, an author, reporter and pr practitioner; knows all about clear, stylistic writing.

Of the writer's tips:

• Find a subject you care about.
• Do not ramble, though.
• Keep it simple.
• Have the guts to cut.
• Sound like yourself.
• Say what you mean to say.
• Pity the readers.

The tip I have the most trouble with is the easiest to understand: find a subject you care about. If the subject of an assignment is boring, I usually turn in a boring assignment. To this, Vonnegut says:

"Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style."

Hmm, I should probably revisit this advice more often. So it goes.

What do you think of their tips? Do you agree? Would you add anything else?