A trip to Emeryville’s shopping hub was the least interesting part of my weekend until the following ad, painted on the entire side of a building, caught the eye of my kids (8 and 10 years old):

“Be not ashamed of thou love of shoes”

Few signs have generated as much discussion: religion, materialism and consumerism; the role of advertising; and even grammar (thy/thou). Not surprising, it didn’t make any of us want to spend more money. It didn’t make us feel better about ourselves, the economy, or a house full of things we don’t have time to gather up and donate. Just the opposite. Like “don’t look at the sun,” “be not ashamed” compels you to do what it’s telling you not to do.

I expect the sign will disappear soon, but I hope the next one is also poorly thought through and grammatically challenged, providing entertainment for those who would rather not be shopping.

advertising, Emeryville, grammar, language, materialism, religion, Shopping, Writing

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Heard a promo on CNN yesterday morning about the “Democratic primary war.” I’m all for the use of metaphor, but given that part of the debate is over how to deal with a real war that is killing kids and destroying families, and given that the Democratic candidates are very close on the issue, the use of “war” to dramatize their sniping once again illustrates a media far more interested in the horse race than the issues.

Left turn: We have become very good readers of bad writing (and listeners of bad speech). We consume so much of it we simply ignore a lot of what’s confusing and do the hard work ourselves, guessing at what the writer must have meant. This is dangerous because we can easily guess wrong and completely misunderstand the intent, and because our ability to read without demanding sense often leads us to write the same way—with no regard for the precise meaning of the sentences we actually write.

Right turn: To become better writers, we need to become better readers and listeners. And that includes reacting to the tortured way ideas and issues are framed (consciously or unconsciously) to meet a less important goal (ratings) at the expense of a more important one (informing on issues). Yes, “important to whom” matters—in CNN’s case, the accountants or the viewers—but that’s why we need to pay close attention. Whether from incompetence, carelessness, selfishness or maliciousness, the meaning and import of what we read is often hidden, and only by demanding sense can we get past the surface and find them. And the better we are at demanding sense, the better we will be at making it.

cnn, Communication, Democratic, language, metaphor, politics, Writing

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More great insight from Seth Godin.

When you blog, are you writing for people who already know you or those first encountering you?

Writes Godin:

“I think this dichotomy of experience raises the level of responsibility for the reader. Without knowing who you’re reading, it’s hard to judge the tone of voice of what you’re hearing. More important, it changes the posture of the writer.

“Sometimes, the web is more of a cocktail party than a club meeting.”

I love this image. I’m at an event and strike up a conversation with a stranger (rare but it’s happened), but before I can get past the name, friends of the stranger join us. They start chatting away, completely ignoring the fact that I don’t know them or what they are talking about. I have a choice, I can interrupt them and ask lots of questions because I really want to get to know these people, or I can excuse myself.
Readers who want to join an online conversation in progress can patiently pay attention until the exchanges begin to make sense—hoping the time was worth it—or they can take the time to review the history of the discussion to get up to speed faster. Or they can simply abandon the conversation without having to make any excuses.

Bloggers have the advantage of using links that provide the needed history to include new readers, but Facebook and Twitter create a completely different environment. These conversations can’t possible carry forward sufficient background for those who missed the beginning or haven’t been paying attention. Still, keep in mind that the more shortcuts, slang, jargon, in-jokes, and unlinked references you make, the more exclusive these new inclusive platforms become.

Blogging, Communication, Facebook, language, Seth Godin, Social Media, Twitter, Writing

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Started another UC Berkeley Extension writing workshop last Saturday. Great group of students with much to contribute. A hot topic was the writing style generation gap. Some of the older students are shocked by the emotional content and other style errors in the writing of their kids and younger colleagues.

Those of us watching the evolution of social media aren’t surprised—dismayed maybe, but not surprised. Is it going to wreak havoc with business communication? Or is it an evolution toward a more democratic, more direct form of communication that will seem completely natural, even in business, to those who grow up with it?

The answer is both. Our language continues its steady drive toward informality and greater emotional content, and the most formal of us today would be labeled as far too informal by the conservative standards of two generations ago. Good article here on the social media generation, which seems to prefer raw and authentic to edited and polished.

But the problem today really isn’t the evolving style. It’s the refusal to adjust the style for the needs of different readers. Most of us easily adjust our behavior—our personal style—as we move from client meetings to internal meetings, to networking events, to being with family. But many of us—both young and old—are unwilling or unable to adjust our writing style to fit the needs of different readers, which causes problems whenever the intended readers include members of different generations.

For communications professionals, the message is clear. Stop complaining about the evolving style and start understanding it. This huge new group of readers is only going to get bigger and more economically powerful.

business communication, Communication, generation gap, language, Social Media, social media generation, UC Berkeley Extension, Writing, writing style

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John McIntyre provides some history to explain why English is the mess it is and why “all sorts of proscriptions live on in the marketplace of ideas — proscriptions against stranded prepositions, split infinitives, sentences beginning with coordinating conjunctions, ‘singular they’, and many more we’ve discussed here, endlessly — even when the ‘high-end’ advice literature generally admits them.”

He goes on to say that “We are almost certainly stuck with the language as it is, as it is spoken and written and commented on by its speakers and writers, messiness being an apparent corollary of liberty.”

When we embrace this truth – and it applies to far more than just our language – we can stop pretending that mastering the rules is the same as mastering the task.

I wasn’t much interested in National Grammar Day (and completely forgot about it on the 4th) because I preferred the idea of a National Clarity Day, but posts like McIntyre’s made it worthwhile.

Communication, English, John McIntyre, language, National Clarity Day, National Grammar Day, Writing

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Dan Santow has a great little reminder about avoiding gobbledygook.

“So avoid referring to plans as pathways to growth or departments as service lines or HR departments as talent management centers or skills as value-added differentiators or programs as strategic-growth platforms or deals as definitive agreements. A release about a major merger recently referred to the fact that 6,000 people were going to be out of a job as enrollment reductions.

“If you really want to be creative, appear smart, seem like you’re with it, come off serious, and, I might add, be honest, concentrate on clarity and preciseness in your writing.”

Communication, Dan Santow, language, Writing

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