The Power of Three

The power of groupings of three is seen everywhere from song and film titles (The Three Amigos), to jokes and memorable quotes. 

Comedians use threes to ensure a laugh. Jokes come with a set-up, a second item that gives a pattern, then a third item that gives an unexpected break in the pattern. It helps the listener anticipate the punchline and laugh in response.

As a business writer you can use groups of three to add emphasis, express concepts more completely, and increase the memorability of your message (see I’ve just used a list of three!).

Common groupings of three include:

• the good, the bad, and the ugly
• blood, sweat, and tears
• location, location, location
• wine, women, and song
• Friends, Romans, Countrymen
• truth, justice, and the American way
• I came, I saw, I conquered (veni, vidi, vici).

You get the idea. Use one for power; two for contrast; three for completeness and memorability.

Real Rules or Folklore? Which Rules to Follow?

Here’s a short clip  showing how to distinguish “Real Rules” from grammatical folklore.

3 NEW COURSES

I’ve been busy designing some new courses in response to requests from clients. They are:

Email Excellence: how to write emails that are read, understood, and acted upon.

Persuasive Business Writing: how to use scientific principles of influence and persuasion in business writing.

Policy Writing: how to write policies, procedures, and regulations.

For course descriptions, click here.

Business jargon obscuring meaning

Verbosity and jargon mark most corporate communication these days. Here’s part of missive from Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend:

 To optimize brand revenue growth, we will shift responsibility for single-site, digital sales and marketing to the brand level. Publishers can now fully leverage their offerings across all platforms. Next month, we will begin newly established brand management meetings where the publishers and editors jointly discuss the growth strategies for their brands.

The only problem with the email was that nobody knew what he was talking about! It’s a warning that jargon serves to obscure not enlighten if it’s overused.

Here are some overused terms that have entered the business ‘space’:

• Site or space. Stores are now retail space.
• Platforms. Products and services are platforms for making profit or improving market share, and often these profits come through pipelines. 
• Pipelines. Nothing to do with pipes. 
• Seamless. Nothing to do with seams.
• Strategies. Everyone needs a strategy. 
• Leverage. Companies now leverage their core competencies. 
• -driven. Wine is fruit-driven, companies are profit- driven, and employees are achievement-driven.

Generation Y learners

My article on Generation Y learners is in the December edition of Training and Development in Australia. Gen Ys are the most rewarded, recognised, and tech savvy generation in living memory. They demand a lot of their employers and of L&D professionals. Members of AITD can read the magazine online.

‘Build’ and ‘spend’ as nouns

If you enjoy the popular TV show  Grand Design, you’ll have quickly caught on to the architect’s use of the word build as a noun: This build is going well.

Now, it seems, that the good people at Flybuys (frequent flyer points system for shoppers) have decided that ‘spend’ can now be used as a noun: Starting today, you’ll earn double FlyBuys points on your spend over $30.

This could be catching.

 

Spelling mistakes cost money

Paul Duncombe, a UK online entrepreneur, says that poor spelling is costing businesses millions of pounds in lost revenue. When shoppers are concerned about the possibility of fraud or being scammed, poor spelling on a website will instantly diminish credibility, and potential customers move on.  A recent study showed that even a single spelling mistake loses sales. 

Concerns about the ability of employees to spell and write just basic English were echoed by James  Fothergill from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).  Mr Fothergill warns that too many employers were having to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their staff.

Getting the basics right, it seems, is essential.

Wordle: a great new tool

 Want to create an abstract image for a report, proposal, or other document? Wordle has a great tool that creates a cloud of words from the text you provide. You can change the colours, font, and design. It’s fast, easy, and fun. Best of all, it’s free!

To boldly go

To split or not to split? The split infinitive remains a point of contention for writers.  An infinitive is split when an adverb is inserted between “to” and the base form of a verb: to boldly go, for instance.  Linguists in the 19th Century believed that because the infinitive of a verb could not be split in Latin, we shouldn’t be able to do the same in English.  This “rule” is, however, broken all the time. The grand-sounding phrase to better serve our customers is found in company mission statements throughout the English-speaking world. 

Many great writers (and the sub-editors of some esteemed publications) seemed to care little whether they split infinitives or not. Here are a few:

Thomas Macaulay: in order to fully appreciate

Lord Byron: to slowly trace the forest’s shady scene

New York Times: failed to correctly diagnose

Douglas Adams in  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has some fun with the Star Trek reference:

In those days men were real men, women were real women, small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before.

Most current guides to English today have dropped their objection to the split infinitive. Current wisdom is that split infinitives are best avoided, but are permissible where the alternative would be awkward or ambiguous.

Stutter or stammer?

The film The King’s Speech has brought the issue of stuttering and its treatment to the fore. But is it stutter or stammer, and is there a difference?

Stuttering and stammering are the same thing. Stutter is  more commonly used  in Australia and the USA. Stammer is preferred in the UK and Europe.

Scholars agree that stuttering is present in every culture, and it seems to affect about 1% of the population. It’s ironic that one of the greatest orators of our time, Winston Churchill,  had a problem with stuttering.

Born with a stutter and a lisp, both caused in large measure by a defect in his palate, Churchill was at first seriously hampered in his public speaking. It is characteristic of the man’s perseverance that, despite his staggering handicap, he made himself one of the greatest orators of our time. [Louis J. Alber, The American Mercury, Vol. 55. (1942)]

Indeed.