Blog

Time to raise a glass to Czech MEP Vladimír Železny.

In a recent interview on Radio Prague, he railed against the use (and mis-use) of language at the European Commission. He picked out the word ’sustainable’ as a particular example of meaningless Orwellian jargon:

“It was the genius of [George] Orwell who taught us a lesson that the totalitarian regime starts with a misuse of language. It’s a loss of meaning, of words. All this is very dangerous, and we know this from our very own experience. We were not a democracy – we were ‘people’s democracy’ under the communist regime, which was stupid because ‘people’s democracy’ means ‘democratic democracy’.

Such strange words improve, as jewels, some sensitive expressions, like ’sustainable’. Everything is sustainable in the European Union, or it should be. The misuse of such words is the first step towards totalitarian thinking. That’s why I tried to give a warning that this misuse will change our sensitivity to the creation of totalitarian thinking.”

The reference to totalitarian regimes might be a bit strong, but he’s certainly got a point about overusing particular words to the extent they lose their meaning.

This month’s word of the month, as readers of our monthly newsletter will know, is:

 sericeous (adjective)

It means silky, like silk, or covered with fine silky hair.

Examples:
Goodness Sophia, you really are a sericeous little minx.
Or:
The sericeous membrane hangs down to hide the opening from all but the most inquisitive eyes.

No, not a comment on the weather, but one of the main considerations for anyone trying to tighten up their writing.

Good writing is all about clarity - getting your message across clearly and concisely. But in the wrong hands, words can often cloud, rather than clarify, the intended message.

Have a read of what reader Julian Critchlow had to say in a recent letter to The Times:

Sue Whiting, a “retired special educational needs co-ordinator”, asserts in her letter (Oct 10) that “there are likely to be 20 per cent of children in any classroom with specific learning differences”.

My initial reaction on reading this was that, surely, all the children would have learning differences: that is the human condition. However, on closer analysis I deduced that what was stated was not what was actually meant. Surely Ms Whiting’s unadorned meaning was that 20 per cent of the children would, for one reason or another, have learning difficulties.

…

Orwellian usage of this kind debases the language as a tool for expression. It leads, at best, to lack of clarity and, at worst, it is downright misleading and stifles legitimate debate. It needs to be rooted out.

Julian Critchlow, Savage Club, SW1

Hear, hear for Mr Critchlow. It’s not always easy to be honest in your writing. But if you can manage it, you’ll usually be rewarded with better understanding and more engagement from your readers.

PS We’ve no idea what the Savage Club is, but shall be applying for membership immediately!

This month’s word is:
temerarious (tem-uh-rair-ee-uhs), adjective.
It means recklessly daring or rash.
Example:
Simon was renowned for his rather temerarious approach to dating.
Or:
Major Jones reprimanded the temerarious priest and warned him against repeating his outburst.

It’s been a busy summer at Wordsworks Towers. We’ve been working on a graduate recruitment brochure for one of the largest law firms in the world, some branding and messaging for a major global advisory firm, a prospectus for a leading further education college and an interactive learning tool for a regional development agency.We’ve also been joined by a new full-time copywriter, Catherine, which brings our numbers up to four. Catherine is a former freelance copywriter and has spent the last four months helping the NUS get the content of its new website up to scratch.

So with more mouths to feed, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any projects on the go that need copywriting support.

One of the key purposes of good business writing is to write in a way that reinforces your brand. It’s also one of the main areas where much business writing often fails.If your brand is about dynamism, energy and modern thinking, your writing needs to support that. So that means using appropriate language, tone and structure.

We were recently working on a recruitment brochure for a major professional services firm. Being a recruitment brochure, the firm wanted to suggest energy, innovation, friendliness and approachability. But one of the main contributors insisted on using words like hence, thus and amongst. Fine words in themselves, but ones that jarred with the firm’s branding message.

Words like hence, thus, amongst and whilst, have a whiff of old-fashioned formality, of stuffiness and of, well, naffness. It’s one of the reasons why most newspapers rarely use them, preferring while to whilst, among to amongst, and just avoiding hence and thus altogether.

You should do the same. Unless, of course, you’re deliberately looking to suggest old-fashioned fustiness and 1950s propriety. In which case, good luck.

We recently advertised for a job here at Wordsworks Towers. One of the candidates sent us an interesting snippet of word trivia which intrigued us: she claimed that the plural for rhinoceros was actually rhinocerotes, and not the more commonly-used rhinoceroses (or indeed, rhinos).

Well, a quick check of the Oxford English Dictionary shows she was right. Apparently, rhinocerotes, which comes from the Latin, was the original plural for rhinoceros, but for one reason or other, fell out of common use in the 18th century, in favour of rhinoceroses.

Hard to see why,  given that it is easier to get your tongue around ‘rhinocerotes’ than it is ‘rhinoceroses’. No wonder we’ve all but ditched the latter and gone for ‘rhinos’ instead.

Next time we’re in conversation with somebody about rhinos (which, to our mind, doesn’t happen as often as it should, we’ll take great pleasure in dropping it into the conversation.

So Cindy, if you’re reading, thanks!

They say three’s company (don’t they? It might be two, but for our sakes, let’s say three), and when it comes to fluid, high impact writing, three is certainly the magic number.

The rule of three is simple. It says that when you’re describing something - the features of a new service or the benefits of a new product - a list of three characteristics is always the most effective.

Two isn’t quite enough, and leaves readers thinking, is that it? While four is too many, and sounds ungainly, if not desperate. Three, in contrast, is powerfully modest.

Something that’s described as innovative, cost effective and simple to use, sounds more alluring than something which is just innovative and cost effective, and less desperate than something which is innovative, cost effective, simple to use and reliable.

Three strikes the right balance of comprehensiveness, clarity and conciseness. And as a result, the sentence sounds stronger, more memorable and far more hard-hitting. (Do you see what we did there?)

This month’s word was chosen purely because we love its feel of old fashioned, fusty bookishness:

Betwixt (adverb or proposition) - meaning ‘between’

“Betwixt” and “between” have similar origins: they both come from a combination of the prefix ‘be-’ and an Old English root meaning ‘two’. Both words appeared before the 12th century, but the use of betwixt dropped off considerably toward the end of the 1600s.

It survived in the phrase “betwixt and between” (neither one thing nor the other), but nowadays betwixt is uncommon. It’s still widely understood, though, and this writer, for one, will be making a conscious effort to reintroduce it into common parlance. Until next month’s word, at least.

Isn’t the web great? There’s all sorts of great writing tips out there. I came across this excellent - and funny - article about writing for the web. It cocks a bit of a snoop at some of the web-writing theories about how people read online.

My view is that while there is some value in the readability research and techniques espoused by the likes of web-writing guru Jakob Nielsen, they are not the only consideration when you’re writing for the web.

What a lot of these techniques seem to overlook is the fact that the best way to keep people reading is to make it interesting. If you can do that, you’re three-quarters of the way there.

If they’d done all this kind of readability research when they were inventing books, we’d all be reading large print Mills & Boon picture books, full of one sentence paragraphs, sub-heads and bullet lists.

Copyright Wordsworks business copywriting agency.