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Archive for 2006

Oxford announces word of the year is … most boring word ever!

Thursday, November 16th, 2006

Well, the good folks at Oxford University Press have unveiled The New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2006. And it ain’t anything cute or even elegant.

It’s carbon neutral. I am yawning just typing it. Head to Oxford if you want the definition.

Their reasoning for choosing such a dud? Oxford’s Erin McKean, editor of the OAD, writes:

We know that people love fun, flashy words like truthiness … but we are always looking for a word that is both reflective of the events and concerns of the past year and also forward-looking: a word that we think will only become more used and more useful as time goes on.

OK … I guess.

Posted in Oxford University Press, Reference materials | no comments »

E-mail lessons from Lincoln

Wednesday, November 15th, 2006

Tom Wheeler’s delightful book Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails explains how the President’s adept use of the telegraph helped him win the Civil War. In a new essay, Wheeler expounds on how reading Lincoln’s “t-mails” changed his own email style. To whit:

When he used an electronic message Lincoln maximized its impact by using carefully chosen words. His August 1864 telegram to General Grant, ‘Hold on with a bull-dog grip, and chew and choke’ could not have been more explicitly expressed. Emails, on the other hand, have tended to become the communications equivalent of casual Fridays, substituting comfort and ease for discipline and rigor.

Fascinating!

Posted in Clear writing, Technology and communications | no comments »

Writing Effective E-mails

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Lifehacker discusses how to improve your email habits and “wrangle spaghetti email messages from the clueless into more effective communication,” with tips on writing better subject lines, writing to get an actual response from your reader, and getting emails to your correct mailbox.

Posted in Clear writing, Technology and communications | no comments »

Land of Typos, part gross

Saturday, September 9th, 2006

From an information technology proposal:

We will bring the lesions learned over the past 10 years to ensure success on this effort.

Talking about lessons learned in proposal text is enough of a cliche. But lesions learned? That’s just gross.

Posted in Land of Typos | no comments »

Land of Typos, part corporate jargon

Thursday, September 7th, 2006

This isn’t exactly a typo, but more an example of the type of corporate writing that makes me want to vomit.

We understand that as change accelerates beyond the fundamental ability of organizations to anticipate it, only one competitive differentiator can help companies stay ahead — innovation. By enabling this constant flow of technology and innovation and facilitating this exchange of ideas and best practices relationships with the world’s leading business and technology companies and our clients, we combine thought leadership with the strengths of our partners to expand our technology and vertical offerings that bring innovation to the marketplace.

Best practices? Thought leadership? Vertical offerings? Give me a break. If you want to sell me something - even a sophisticated IT service - tell me in plain English what you are offering and what it will do for me.

This type of vague, hot-air-filled promises just don’t cut it.

Posted in Land of Typos | no comments »

National Punctuation Day

Monday, August 28th, 2006

Well, it’s hardly a national holiday … but perhaps a few people out there will be celebrating National Punctuation Day on September 24.

Be sure to check out the photos of punctuation gaffes displayed on the event site.

Posted in Punctuation nightmares | 1 comment »

Making typos to show that typos are wrong?

Friday, August 4th, 2006

RepMan writes about the lastest absurd result of a public figure/head honcho neglecting to run copy past a proofreader or editor before releasing it to the masses.

It seems a company called TextTrust–which hawks “the Internet’s highest quality web site spell checker”–sent out a press release full of–you guessed it–typos. The misspelled words included independent, accommodation, and definitely, which were spelled independant, accomodation, and definately. Ouch.

TexTrust’s PR manager immediately accepted responsibility for the incident, but as RepMan writes, “the damage had [already] been done. TextTrust became something of a water cooler joke.” He goes on to articulate one of my main points as to why copyediting your work is essential to maintaining your company’s reputation: “If he/she can’t get the spelling correct in what was probably a critically important press release, can he/she be trusted with other assignments?”

Posted in Land of Typos, Spelling, Why editors exist | no comments »

Land of Typos, part ouch

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006

From a recently edited scientific manuscript:

Expansion of the tested material occurred when the testes were held in an NaOH solution.

Those poor, poor testes.

Needless to say, the author intended to use the word tests. His use of testes instead represents one of the classic categories of typos that slip through spellchecker: the Accidentally Naughty Sentence.

Posted in Land of Typos | 1 comment »

Simplified Spelling for English?

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006

I’m a writer, an editor, and a voracious reader. The English language has been my passion since before I can remember; moreover, it’s now my bread and butter. I get paid to know the difference between principal and principle, and to know the three distinct meanings (and spellings) of pallet, pallette, and palate.

But lately, as I’ve started teaching my 4-year-old son to read, I’ve begun to feel that the conventions of English spelling represent little more than a cruel guessing game. My child knows that the K sound starts the word kitty. Why shouldn’t it also start the word cake?

The Simplified Spelling Society knows why, and it has a solution: reform English spelling to reflect alphabetic principles of sound, replacing ridiculously spelled words like rough with simplified forms such as ruf.

If everyone could spell, my job would be a lot easier (well, actually, I’d probably be out of a job). But wouldn’t a literacy based on logic be better for everyone?

What do you think?

Posted in Spelling | 1 comment »

Land of Typos, part uno

Thursday, July 20th, 2006

“Most Danish motorways in the 1970′ies were constructed with cement-bound base layers.”

Oh dearie.

References to decades should generally be handled much more simply: the 1970s. Don’t you agree’ie?

Posted in Land of Typos | no comments »

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