Get With Your Grammar
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- On June 10, 2014
“I think the grammar was all screwed up in that sentence, so let me start again.”
That’s our president talking to David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.
I suspect President Obama... (Read More)
Jargon Masks Meaning
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- On May 27, 2014
“I want to go upstream as much as possible and take the premium dollar at the source,” a hospital executive said in a news article about hospitals starting their own health insurance plans.
Go upstream? What does that mean? I looked up the reference and learned it has to do with... (Read More)
Start With a Story
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- On May 21, 2014
“Toni Murden McClure was the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the first American to ski overland to the South Pole. She has led expeditions up Mount Rainier and the Andes, and through Kenya and Alaska.”
Are those the first lines of a feature on women... (Read More)
Use, Utilize
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- On May 14, 2014
I started this bulletin with an airtight agenda: Always write use, never utilize. It’s simpler and means the same thing. Utilize doesn’t sound professional, just pretentious.
That’s mostly true, but it turns out utilize shouldn’t be banished outright; it has a small place—just where took some investigating.
Utilize means to find a profitable or practical use for something, which is... (Read More)
More Important, Most Important
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- On May 12, 2014
“With every trip we work hard to earn your business and, most importantly, your satisfaction.”
So wrote United to its frequent flyers. Had the carrier written and, most important (not most importantly), my satisfaction would have soared. Flight delays, lost luggage, less leg room—why sweat the small stuff?
Most important is short for what is... (Read More)
Unproofed!
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- On April 30, 2014
A three-time broker of the year announced a high-priced real estate sale to prospective clients. “This time I resented the owners,” she wrote.
A first-rate publication described a former first daughter as raising her pubic persona.
These mortifying moments could have been averted through proper proofreading, the final step in good writing.
Two weeks... (Read More)
“THAT Fat”
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- On April 14, 2014
Avocados are good fats. But if you eat a lot of them, you won’t lose weight.
The same thing happens to your writing when you overuse the word that. A little of that is fine—and in some roles (that has many) it’s essential—but too much that and your copy gets fat.
Consider this sentence:
Editors say that the... (Read More)
Flesh Out or Flush Out?
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- On April 9, 2014
In response to my bulletin on home in and hone in, a former agency colleague wrote, “This one bugs me almost as much as flesh out/flush out.”
If you’re in the business of turning ideas into full-fledged campaigns, you may have wondered which word to use. Maybe you’ve even mashed... (Read More)
Watch Where You Put the Only
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- On April 2, 2014
A networking organization writes to tell its members how seriously it takes their privacy. We only share data when we’re legally required to do so. My newspaper tells me I’m about to receive extra crossword puzzles that could only come from the paper’s master crosswords editor.
What’s off?
The authors are relying on the... (Read More)
Good Writing Depends on Clear Thinking
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- On March 26, 2014
It happens to us all. We sit down to write but struggle to get out clear consecutive sentences. Or we hammer out a draft and somebody says, “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
This happens because we’ve given short shrift to the thinking that has to come... (Read More)