Just Google it! Actually, don’t.

More cases of how words can cost or win companies millions.

Google

Using Google as a verb has become a popular phrase in today’s world, but you will never hear an employee of Google use it that way. They will always tell you to “search using Google”.

This is a trade mark issue. When the Language council of Sweden wanted to add the word “ungooglable” to its lexicon, they meant it to define “something that cannot be found on the web using a search engine.” Google jumped on this quickly asking them to add a reference to google.com in the definition. Legally, this is their right. (Matacoins, 2013)

When a company loses control of a trademark word, other can start using it. If Google is not careful, one day Bing or Yahoo could have a “Google bar”. It used to be that the only company allowed to make “escalators” was the Otis Elevator Company. Everyone else had to make vertical moving stairs, until the word escalator became equally defined as “vertical moving stairs” (Matacoins, 2013).

There is a trust developed in certain words. I will trust a “Google Search” over a “Bing Search” so there is some customer relations built with language. When nouns get a “verb makeover” it can be great for the English language but terrible for the bottom line of that business.

Apple

Apple made some waves when they claimed their Ipod was the “funness ipod ever”. They also made “nano” a verb when they claimed they “renanoed” the ipod nano.  Apple was clearly trying to make people do a double take with the words (for lack of a better word) they chose for this ad (Fogarty, Can Apple Get Away with "Funness"?, 2013). Funness is not a word, and funnest or funner gets grammar people all riled up. If the objective is to get people to notice your product, Apple used language to make this mission a success.

Bibliography:

Matacoins, D. (2013, March 26). Google Doesn't want People Using "Google" as a verb. Retrieved from Outside the Beltway: www.outsidethebeltway.com/google-doesnt-want-people-using-google-as-a-verb/

Fogarty, M. (2013, January 24). Can Apple Get Away with "Funness"? Retrieved from Quick and Dirty Tips: www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/can-apple-get-away-with-"funness"

How to Plain-Language.

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”.

-A.A. Milne

This small checklist will help anyone think differently about how they are writing for a business document.

-Identify your audience

-Keep it short

-Use personal pronouns

-Write in a visually appealing style

-Don’t be wordy

-Structure your writing

-Use graphics and tables

-Do not use and/or

-Avoid Redundancies

-Test your writing.

-Avoid “shall”

-Use Parallel Phrasing

 All of these points are pulled from this article by the Center for Plain Language. There are a few more guidelines I would like to highlight more in depth.

Write in an active voice.

Active voice vs. passive voice is not something that I find a lot of my peers to know about. Passive voice is when you are telling what action the subject of your sentence had done to it. Even the explanation is terrible. Your subject should always be doing the action in the sentence.

“Sherlock found the clue” is a lot better than “the clue was found by Sherlock.” Using Active voice helps eliminate wordiness, one of the other rules highlighted by the Center for Plain Language.

Watch your unnecessary qualifiers

This is my personal pet peeve, so I’m glad it made the list. On my desk at home I have a few tools I have pinned to a cork board to avoid this redundancy.

image source: https://phaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/1073969/0yx17y8VZ7m8IDZnhpzOOZP7OnI/medium_45_ways_to_avoid_using_the_verb_very.png

image source: http://danienglish.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/vocabulary-for-writers.jpg

Sometime in grade 11 English, my teacher taught a lesson on how words are absolutes or degrees but never both. For example, something can be “wrong” or “right”, but it can’t be “VERY wrong”. Furthermore, its redundant to say it is “totally right.” When writing for business its good to take a moment to think about the words you are using and ask if they are degrees or absolutes.

Myself, if I can replace a word with the word “very” and the sentence still makes sense I get rid of it, or I find a better word. I change “extremely happy” to “elated”, “thrilled”, ecstatic”. All of a sudden, the writing can come alive with these powerful words, and the message is better conveyed.

Don’t use multiple negatives.

The example that the article gives is a wonderful use of how this can clarify the meaning of your writing. Plus, it's just better to focus on the positive in life!

Double Negative Sentence: “No changes will be made to the Department of Transportation’s regulations unless the administrator reviews them and concludes that they are not lacking any important information.” (Center for Plain Language, NY)

Single Negative Sentence: “Changes will be made to the Department of Transportation’s regulations only if the administrator reviews them and concludes they are lacking important information.” (Center for Plain Language, NY)

Excess words vs. Plain Alternatives

This relates to the “don’t use very” and “avoid redundancies” rules listed above. The article has a great list of words that can be swapped for outdated or redundant groups of words.

I love this rule because it shows how all these rules relate to one another without any conflicts.

 (Center for Plain Language, NY)

Bibliography:

Center for Plain Language. (NY). Center For Plain Language. Retrieved from Guidelines for Creating Plain Language Materials: http://centerforplainlanguage.org/about-plain-language/guidelines-for-creating-plain-language-materials/

There is more to business writing than Plain Language.

As useful as plain-language is meant to be, if work has not been proofread properly there is no chance anyone will understand anything it says. Furthermore, spelling mistakes harm a company’s credibility and success, in a marketplace increasingly dominated by text based websites.

I work in retail; I know how to turn someone walking into my store from a skeptic into a valued customer. It is not hard or some big secret: be kind, be sincere, smile, and believe in the product you are selling. I work in a bookstore; I put greater faith into nothing higher.

Online customers, on the other hand, are asked to trust a faceless cashier, so the text, pictures and layout of the website have to evoke trust, and quickly.

BBC news released an article in 2011 showing that it is possible online businesses are cutting revenue in half because of a spelling error on their website. The article outlines a website (tightsplease.co.uk) that had a spelling error and the sales were double shortly after the error was corrected. This shows the quantifiable proof that customers are concerned about online fraud and the spelling on website plays a big part of building a relationship (Coughlan, 2011). Now this can be corrected, online a refresh button works wonders, but that luxury is not always present.

In Australia, the military misspelled “Australia” and had that blunder printed onto the uniforms of the Royal Australian Navy (Sassone, 2011).  This article explains that it doesn't really affect the skills of the Navy to defend the country. I am skeptical about the feelings of the soldiers being just as proud to wear the uniform as they were before. Their skills may remain undamaged, but there pride has taken a hit in some way.

Proofreading is a skill, it’s not something that people are just born to do, even people who love proofreading, should get their own stuff looked over by someone else. I’m in college and I will invariably get better marks in my Mother edits my homework (no shame).

Proofreading tips, brought to you by the genius Grammar Girl at quickanddirtytips.com.

1.     Read your work backwards. Sometimes your brain knows what you meant to say and will skip over typos. Outsmart your brain by using your brain.

2.     Reading work out loud so that you slow down your reading. (I can personally say, you WILL catch mistakes with this technique.)

3.     Print out your work and proofread that. It just works.

4.     Finally, don’t proofread your work right after you finish it. Give it a few hours to be lost then go back.

(Fogarty, 2006)

I would like to also make a note of the second point in regards to plain-language. If you trip over your words or you are having trouble pronouncing proper inflections you are not making clear statements. Developing good proofreading habits will help with plain writing as well.

Bibliography :

Coughlan, S. (2011, July 13). Spelling mistakes 'cost millions' in lost online sales. Retrieved from BBC News Education and Family: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854

Sassone, K. (2011, July 20). Why Spelling and Grammar Matter in Marketing. Retrieved from Hubspot. Inbound Hub:http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/20383/Why-Spelling-and-Grammar-Matter-in-Marketing.aspx

Fogarty, M. (2006, October 20). Quick and Dirty Tips. Retrieved from Proofreading Tips: www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/proofreading-tips

So what is Plain Language?

An important point to make is that this plain language movement is intended for business writing. This new way to think about writing is for companies to avoid spending millions of dollars on a comma, like Rogers. For all the prose writers and academics out there, this is a great way to mean what you say when you need to, but when you want to get creative, plain language rules apply only in the clear presentation of that creativity.

Wordsmithassociates.com has a great quote on the front page of their site explaining just this point. The sum it up nicely explaining plain-language is “writing that is direct and engaging, simple and clear.” (Wordsmith Associates, 2009)

In 2010 the US Federal Government created the Plain Writing Act. It requires all government officials to write using the plain-language rules. This includes all forms and publicly distributed documents. The law ensures that anyone looking for  federal information will find documents to be “clear, concise, well-organized.” (Center For Plain Language, NY)

This demonstrates very well how Plain writing was intended to be used. When people are searching for information, they can find it and there is no question as to what the meaning behind the words.

So why take all this extra effort?

The United States National Insinuates of Health has outlined some benefits of plain-language writing.

1.     Saves time, and therefore;

2.     Saves money

3.     Improves reader response

4.     Avoids barriers between knowledgeable writers and those reading

(National Institutes of Health)

I rather enjoyed the article by the NIH, they summed it up nicely and the picture included will make anyone chuckle.

Image Source: http://www.nih.gov/clearcommunication/lmedia/plainenglish.gif

Bibliography: 

Center For Plain Language. (NY). Plain Writing Act of 2010. Retrieved from Center For Plain Language: http://centerforplainlanguage.org/resources/plain-writing-laws/plain-writing-act-of-2010/

National Institutes of Health. (n.d.). Plain Language at NIH. Retrieved from National Institutes of Health: http://www.nih.gov/clearcommunication/plainlanguage/index.htm

Wordsmith Associates. (2009). Wordsmith Associates. Retrieved from Wordsmtih Associates: http://wordsmithassociates.com/index.html

Blog the First.

This blog is about the intricacies of grammar. The debates and articles on various grammar topics are just plain interesting, when you really get into it. The very fact that we can argue about language and grammar is great proof of how smart humans are. There are times, however, when language cannot be up for debate. The meaning behind a sentence needs to be clear. This clarity keeps Grandmothers alive!!

Image source: http://www.rottenecards.com/ecards/rottenecard_6419836_9qd85dt3rz.png

Rogers Communications, a Canadian company found this comma conundrum very costly in 2006; the company lost 1 million dollars because of a single comma.

The guilty sentence in question:

“This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing be either party.” (Austen, 2006)

WHAT THEY MEANT!

The agreement will be effective from the date it is made and continue for a period of five years from that date. After that initial five year period the agreement will continue in five year terms unless one party cancels the agreement by giving one year notice.

WHAT THEY SAID!

The contract can be cancelled at any time if one party gives the other party one year written notice.

Internal punctuation of a sentence can be the trickiest part of the English language, and still it is often underrepresented. For business writing this clarity matters a great deal. So how could Rogers have avoided their mistake? Well they could have made the whole sentence (most likely the whole document) easy to understand.

Anyone who loves reading and writing as much as I do (a love too large to be quantified) knows that there can be a wonderful joy in ambiguous sentences with hidden meanings, because the author makes the writing more complicated. This is where English PHDs are born from, this love for making language an art.

However, in business contracts this ambiguity has no place; there is only one intended meaning when it comes to a contract. If there is more than one meaning, jobs, money, and reputations are on the chopping block. What Rogers needed was some plain-language skills.  Websites like wordsmithassociates, the center for plain language and plainlanguage.gov are committing to promoting the concept of plain language. They are committed to the fact that using language that is unambiguous is not dumbing down writing, rather it allows clear meaning and for Rogers would have been the smarter choice. (National Institutes of Health)


Bibliography

National Institutes of Health. (n.d.). Plain Language at NIH. Retrieved from National Institutes of Health: http://www.nih.gov/clearcommunication/plainlanguage/index.htm