Category: language

  • Word play: imputer or inputter?

    WHEN WE WRITE down a word based on how it sounds, there is ample opportunity to make a spelling mistake.

    In the past I have seen the confusion of imputer with inputter.

    The verb to impute is to attribute something bad to someone (unjustly), such as a crime. It is also used to mean the incorrect attribution of something to a particular source. The noun ‘imputer’ would therefore refer to the person doing the imputing. However, I cannot find mention of this word in a dictionary – therefore it is either a nonsense or a neologism (take your pick).

    In any case, it’s definitely not a word to be confused with inputter.

    An inputter is a noun, referring to a person or machine responsible for entering data into a computer (from the root verb to input, or the root noun, ie, that which forms the input)

    Input can be data or energy, material, or an amount of something intangible measured through a machine.

    Perhaps there is scope for input data to be so terrible that it could be imputed to a source – I’m thinking of those who pass off poor company results to avert a financial crisis!

  • Marketing for SMEs part two: master the old-school media

    IN MY LAST post, I outlined some of the great free webtools available that small businesses and sole traders can use to help promote their endeavours. For example, social media campaigns are a great way to tap into new markets and share your ideas and expertise with like-minded individuals.But despite the march of the digital, I believe there is still a place for more traditional media and media campaigns – if you know how to get the best out of them.

    And while a traditional campaign may cost you money, these days prices are more competitive than ever before, meaning it will be worth your while to seek out a good deal.

    Let’s start with something really simple: your customer database. Presumably you have a clutch of regular loyal customers who come back time and again, and have willingly given you their email address or mobile phone number. Make use of this database: it is your most precious business resource, and any campaign you run should be devoted to growing it. Your aim is to foster an even deeper loyalty from those clients by providing them with extra reasons to keep coming back. Send them exclusive offers, such as two-for-one deals and discounts, or offer them previews and preferential bookings. In time, this will also generate excellent word of mouth. That’s when you should offer them an ‘introduce a friend’ deal – thus opening the door to membership of what is effectively a little club.

    So, how do you do this via email? This is where excellent persuasive writing skills come into play: you will need to craft a short, snappy note to your customers to invite their interest. Its subject heading will need to be really smart to get them to open the email rather than let it fall into the trash file.

    Great spelling and grammar are vital at this stage. You must impart some of your knowledge and avoid the hard sell – this tactic is very offputting. Explain to your clients why you are writing to them, and – very importantly – give them the option to opt out of future mailing should they wish.

    If you are unsure of how to go about this, why not sign up to a few newsletters put together by some of your favourite brands and see how the big companies do it – you can emulate their style no matter how big or small your operation. There are also lots of tools and tips for writing here (word-wizard.com/?page_id=53).

    One final tip on email: if you’re finding your database a bit unwieldy or want to give the email itself a professional edge, check out a management service such as MailChimp (mailchimp.com) to help you make the task easier.

    You could argue that the e-newsletter has replaced the original printed newsletter but there are still times when print is the perfect medium. A short brochure is just the ticket for anyone attending a conference or roadshow – in fact its pretty inconceivable that one would hire any kind of stall without having something to dish out in a goody bag.

    Again it pays to invest heavily in making sure your spelling and grammar are beyond reproach – it can be very easy to let the basics fall by the wayside when you are concentrating on what images and themes to cover in your brochure.

    It is also worthwhile getting a design professional to make up your brochure, especially if you are sending it to a professional print house. They will be able to make sure all your images are of a good enough quality to use (what looks nice on screen is often much poorer in print), and that the pages are not too cluttered to read. If you don’t know any graphic designers you could start your search by asking your print shop if they know anyone.

    Services can also be purchased through bidding websites like People per Hour – though these come with an element of risk in that you are likely to be putting your trust in a total stranger! If this doesn’t worry you, it could be a very rewarding experience. Don’t always be swayed by the person offering the lowest price – if it comes cheap then it’s likely to look so too.

    Leaflets are as important to get right as brochures. Our temptation can be to run off something ourselves on the home computer as this is usually the most cost-effective option available. But if you do this, make sure you ask someone else to objectively assess your efforts. Ask yourself brutally honest questions about how your design looks and if it works. is there too much on the page? Does your key message stand out?

    Think also about how you yourself treat leaflets and flyers – how quickly do you look at them before putting them In a bin? This is exactly what will happen to many of your flyers. With this in mind, think about the best way to maximise the chance of your leaflet becoming a conversion. This may require a targeted drop, such as spending a morning or evening leafleting outside a station or going to an event related to your business.

    Make sure too that your leaflets have a purpose, such as an introductory offer or freebie. No one will want them otherwise.

    Finally, do you live in an area where there are lots of free magazines? Then why not get in touch to find out what their advertising and advertorial rates are. You may be surprised to find that a small advert such as a 1/8 or 1/6 of a page is well within your budget.

    Once you are on the radar of their sales team you are much more likely to be offered exclusive offers in future – such as the chance to be involved in an advertorial (usually more prominent than an ordinary ad) at a knock-down price. There is also the greater liklihood of being included in the regular news pages too.

  • Five embarrassing typos to avoid at all costs

    WHEN WE WRITE quickly with the intention of publishing or emailing our work ‘yesterday’, there is a real danger of inserting a mistake that we would not ordinarily make. Consequently, these mistakes have the effect of making us look like we don’t know our stuff. These are generally basic errors that could have been averted if we’d taken more care.

    Quite worryingly for a small business, these sorts of mistakes can cost you new customers. While pedants are often irritating, small businesses and sole traders should not discount these people as potential clients!

    Here are five mistakes it would be worth your while to avoid making.

    The hurried three-letter word: We type the words ‘the’ and ‘and’ so regularly that we can become blind to the fact their characters are easily transposed. It’s always embarrassing to see when you’ve accidentally published ‘hte’ or ‘adn’. You may be lucky enough to have turned on your spell-checker, in which case these two words should auto-correct. But you should be reluctant to fall back on such a facility. Not all smart devices or apps have this built in. Proofreading will be your only friend!

    The missed vowel: It’s all too easy to think you’ve typed a double letter (such as in too) only to find later on that you wrote ‘to’ by mistake. It’s especially easy to do if you’ve got a sticky keyboard or are using a smart device with a fast touch keypad. Auto-correct facilities on smart devices aren’t always tuned in to grammar, so the upshot is they may choose the wrong form of a word for you. Our advice is to read over what you’ve done carefully before hitting that send or publish button.

    The missed consonant: Getting your vowels right is essential, but consonants are just as important. In fact, missed consonants can prove incredibly dangerous to your business. Leaving out certain letters will result in a different word being created than you intended, perhaps to great (but embarrassing) comical effect. Can you imagine a serious newspaper article describing the actions of a violent criminal, only to see in print that he has been described as a violet criminal?  Now imagine this kind of error writ large in the newspaper’s headline – an action liable to win it a spot on the satirical TV show Have I Got News for You. Now imagine such an error slipping through in your own business communications – your emails, leaflets, brochures etc. Not only will it cause unintended amusement, but you’ll probably have spent good money on the print run too.

    The jumbled word: Another tricky and oft repeated mistake that your spell-checker won’t find is what I call the jumbled word. Let’s say you meant to write ‘Please fill in this form’. Later on you realise you wrote ‘Please fill in this from’ instead. Doh! There are so many words in the English language that use the same letters in a different order – we really do need to be vigilant. Here’s an even more embarrassing example. ‘John’s new brassiere is being opened tonight by a surprise celebrity guest’. The word should of course have been brasserie. I’ve seen this happen in print more times than I care to mention. If you’re opening a little bistro soon, pay very close attention indeed to your marketing material. The same applies if you’re opening a new underwear shop. You don’t want people trying to book tables for two in confusion.

    The problem with public…: The problem with the word public, when you’re typing or reading very quickly, is that the letter L can become invisible very, very easily. I won’t spell this out in full to you. Simply look at the word public and imagine what word is created instead if you remove that L. Don’t fall foul if you can possibly help it!

    Shudder people, and take note. Proofreading is very important to your business communications.

  • Spelling explained: dependant or dependent?

    THERE ARE SO many words which sound the same and are spelled differently. To make matters more difficult, a number of these words have related meanings, making it even easier for anyone uncertain to pick the wrong one.

    Take dependant and dependent – two words that are not interchangeable in UK English. Dependent is an adjective whose meaning is ‘to rely on someone or something for support’. For example:

    Joseph is dependent on his son Dave for help with the shopping.

    Dependent is also used to indicate a need, or dependency, eg:

    Chloe is drug dependent.

    Dependant on the other hand is a noun, and so refers to the person or people who are involved in a dependent relationship. Usually dependant is used when referring to someone who relies financially on another’s help. For example:

    Mary has three dependants: her daughters Carol and Avis, and her son Doug.

    There is of course a complicating factor: this rule only applies in UK English. In US English, the word dependant does not exist. They use dependent interchangeably.

    The UK versus US English problem is something that will continue to challenge us for many years to come – the only question I have is how long will it take for one form to dominate and wipe out the other?

  • Are we really in the lap of luxury?

    AS IS CUSTOMARY for me when making a point about the power of language, I’d like to start with a dictionary definition, paraphrased from the Collins Dictionary of English:

    “Luxury (noun) – indulgence in and enjoyment of rich, comfortable and sumptuous living; something that is considered an indulgence rather than a necessity. Also a modifier (ie, luxury yacht)”

    Pretty much everyone in Great Britain lives in some semblance of luxury if we apply the notion of comfort relative to the world as a whole. Even poorer people here tend to have a roof over their heads and access to food – along with commodities that would seem in other parts of the world to be an indulgence.

    But in marketing terms, ‘luxury’ is not referring to this kind of comfort. Luxury is being peddled on a widespread basis to consumers as a little extra, something perhaps they don’t yet have but should. Something they can afford but believed they could not. Often the campaigns that use words like luxury involve other attempts at temptation, using words like ‘deserve’, ‘naughty’ and ‘treat’.

    Now I’d like you to think about how often and in which situations you might commonly see the word luxury used. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have seen it on billboards advertising package holidays and high street clothes; you’ll have read it on countless hoardings to promote a new development of matchbox-sized houses and flats; you will almost certainly have heard it repeated in adverts on the TV, usually in relation to some generic bathing products or a cheap yoghurt.

    In this context, how do consumers retain the ability to spot luxury when something is merely ‘good’ or ‘nice’? Will people eventually grow tired of marketeers telling them that a dollop of chocolate flavoured milk pudding is the height of luxury when they know full well it’s just a welcome comforter at the end of a bad day? Has the word’s meaning been lessened, and are consumers knowingly complicit because it makes them feel better to believe they are better off? I think the extent to which the word luxury is used is so ubiquitous as to render it an expectation or a right. Luxury as a concept then becomes commonplace – which is absurd, because by the very nature of its meaning, luxury cannot be so.

    Compare overuse of the word luxury (and the related ‘luxurious’) in the mainstream with the actual luxury brands market. High-end products and their marketing teams very rarely use the word luxury at all. Instead, they employ a whole range of other marketing conventions to sell their products. Words will be used sparingly, perhaps even just the name of the brand itself. They are likely to sell the brand by using a very famous face, often without promoting a specific product. They are unlikely to show prices. Photography will be of the highest order, with perfect lighting and flawless post-production. Products themselves come in boxes and bags that are sumptuous to the touch.

    Someone can see a high-end marketing campaign and immediately know its aim is to show you what luxury looks like. But it generally won’t tell you it’s luxurious. This subtlety is used not only to market high-end fashion, but also real estate, vehicles and holidays.

    If people understand the conventions of exclusivity in marketing, it then follows that shoppers also understand the selling of false luxury as aspiration – be it a fat-free yoghurt or a new sofa they don’t actually have to pay for until the stuffing is oozing out of its fraying seams.

    The problem with the retail sector is that its success is built on a constant round of consumption. It provides a huge swathe of jobs that the UK cannot afford for people to lose. So if the peddling of aspiration is what it takes to keep retail rolling in an uncertain economy, we’ll be hearing a lot more about false luxuries yet.

  • Frankenwords – a guest post for Content Desk

    HERE’S A LINK to another guest post I created for Content Desk, the web portal by Progressive that’s linked to their Content Cloud – a system matching up professional writers with blue chip companies in need of content.

    This post focused on the phenomenon of Frankenwords – those marketing buzzwords where two normal words are spliced together to form another. They’re excruciatingly annoying, but nothing it seems can stop their march…

    http://desk.thecontentcloud.net/features/frankenwords-use-run-mile#.VBMMOLYr6Jg

  • Proofreading for business – a guest post

    HERE IS A link to my guest post for the Content Desk, a web portal about creating good online content for business.

    This is a shorter version of my original Word Wizard post about improving your proofreading skills.

    http://desk.thecontentcloud.net/guides/six-steps-perfect-proof-reading#.VBMMT7Yr6Jg

  • Word play: continually or continuously?

    DO YOU EVER write a sentence and hesitate over a word? It’s a word you know you know, but somehow when it’s written down it doesn’t look quite right. You can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong with your sentence. So you leave it as it is, and move on.

    Sometimes a word will seem correct because it appears similar to another word. In fact, no spell checker will pick up your error, because you have, in fact, correctly spelled a word. It’s just not the word you were after! Take the following example:

    Jess was annoyed because her little brother continuously interrupted while she worked.

    We understand perfectly the meaning of the sentence: Jess’s patience is being tested by her brother, who won’t leave her alone. But does the word continuously properly belong in this sentence? Would the word continually work better?

    First there is the similarity between these two adverbs to contend with. Continually and continuously each derive from an adjective that has the same root – continue. Continue is an intransitive verb, meaning ‘to maintain a condition or course’.

    Continuously is defined under continuous in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as ‘uninterrupted’. Continually however, is listed as ‘constantly or frequently recurring; always happening’. They are accompanied by a usage note.

    Oxford asserts that ‘continual’ means to happen frequently but ‘with breaks in between each occurrence’. ‘Continuous’ and its uninterrupted interpretation is taken as truly incessant. So the example above should in fact read:

    Jess was annoyed because her little brother continually interrupted while she worked.

    This is because at some point Jess will stop at her task, forcing a break. The use of the word ‘constant’ above for exaggerated effect is perhaps what is actually confusing the sentence. As a literary device, Jess feels as though her brother constantly interrupts, but this is not really true.

  • Perfect proofreading: part two

    LAST WEEK I uploaded a post containing my first five tips for perfect proofreading. It really is possible to publish and print great content if you take the time to look for the most common errors. Here are my final five tips for achieving this.

    6 – Look for inconsistency. Have you used capital letters throughout your document, not just as the start of sentences? If so, have you used them consistently? Same goes for numbers. Do you use a mixture of numerals and words, ie. Ten or 10. What about bullet points? Have you used a mixture of numbers and blobs? It doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as you only use the one style throughout your document.

    7 – Punctuation. Are there full stops where they are needed? What about quotation marks, question marks, commas? The placing of a comma can change the meaning of a sentence, so be careful where you put them. Reading your document aloud can help you to work out where the emphasis of punctuation ought to be.

    8 – Have a break. If your document is long, you will tire of looking for mistakes and stop being able to spot them. Do it the next day if you have time.

    9 – Read your work backwards. This might seem odd, but reading from the end of the document to the beginning can help some people spot spelling errors more easily, because you’re not anticipating the word order or the flow of a sentence.

    10 – Ask someone else to read your document. If only for the sake of a second pair of eyes when you’re tired and on a deadline. We all have different strengths and abilities to spot errors. Someone good at maths might spot an error where you have used numbers. Some people have great awareness of space, and might spot an extra return or indent where there shouldn’t be one. Someone might be good with names, and able to spot an inconsistency, ie. Ann or Anne.

    And that’s really all there is to it! Best of all, if you take your time and check all the elements outlined above, you will eventually acquire the confidence you need to get things right every time.

  • Youth: my hope lies beyond the headlines

    THIS IS A blog post I attempted to post in January 2014, but the computer network crashed and it didn’t upload. I post it now, as I believe the general thrust of the argument I make still holds true in May. And there’s bound to be another news story around the corner than reinforces my message…

    JUST WHAT THE nation’s young people need to hear on only the second day of the year: news that a significant number of their peers thinks they ‘have nothing to live for’.

    Apparently, many young people – including those who are not out of work – are experiencing suicidal thoughts, anxiety attacks and some are even turning to anti-depressants in a bid to cope with the notion of the future. Although the unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level in four years, the perception on the ground is not yet positive. If the study is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt it) this is serious stuff indeed.

    The headlines, naturally, take the serious angle to heart. ‘One in 10 young British ‘have nothing to live for’ stated one online story. Young people ‘feel they have nothing to live for’ stated another.

    But let us take a slightly different view. The news comes on the back of the publication of a report responding to a YouGov poll taken on behalf of The Prince’s Trust Macquarie Youth Index. It spoke to a sample of 2,136 people aged 16-25 online last autumn. While this is statistically a significant number to warrant taking notice of, we must remember that all statistics are extrapolated, a point the report made clear according to the BBC’s coverage (with my bold emphasis):

    “The report found 9% of all respondents agreed with the statement: “I have nothing to live for” and said if 9% of all youngsters felt the same, it would equate to some 751,230 young people feeling they had nothing to live for.”

    One of the most important words here has got to be ‘if’. It is the word that gets lost amid the terrifying figures. It is the word that gets omitted when people fear for their future. It is the little word that anyone already feeling a bit blue might not see.

    This is not to say that we shouldn’t investigate the very real causes of youth unemployment and lack of opportunities where it is truly the case that there are scant vacancies or resources. We should always question the idea of cutting funding to areas such as Youth Services and libraries, where the majority of young people may turn for advice (especially if they are from a background which lacks support or guidance at home).

    But the thing we can do something about almost instantly is change how we report these situations, these statistics. The tendency is to focus on the negative as a mean of counteracting any political spin. Consequently I believe this results in a lack of journalism to counter the negativity where it matters most – in the minds of the people who are being written about.

    I remember being 16 myself, at the height of the early-90s recession. I was hopeful, I had plans. What I don’t remember is the headlines speaking to me, telling me that all hope was lost. If I read a negative story, I assumed the best, not the worst was to come. The proliferation of media today makes it harder to escape the constant round of data, opinion and information – it’s on tap, everywhere we go. You try switching it off, when it’s all you’ve ever known.

    I’m no dinosaur: I don’t think we can, or necessarily should, switch everything off and go back to the ways of the ‘old days’. But I do think we have to make greater effort to sift and question the way information is fed to us.

    That is not to let young people off the hook entirely. Their lives are in their hands. Once the stabilising wheels of childhood come off standing on your own two feet can mean one of two things: fear and uncertainty, or joy and liberation.

    Here are my suggestions for making the future count, even if you’re not sure what the future holds:

    1 – Question and challenge
    So you’ve read a story that shows young people in a collective negative light. Don’t just read it and shrug; react. Write a letter to the publication that posted or printed it. Outline your anecdotal evidence to prove that you are employed, or looking very hard for a job; that you study and have a plan. If you don’t have these things in place, then write to ask why that publication doesn’t give young people tips and resources that could help them as well as the negative news? Offer to become a case study if you can stomach the publicity (but guard your image with your life – don’t let them own your brand if you can help it!)

    2 – Get out there
    If you feel yourself responding to an article negatively, try to counteract that by doing something positive. Identify the element of that report which hurt you most and turn it around. Did the article accuse people like you of sitting around doing nothing? Then prove it wrong by getting a new hobby or interest. If you are out there, contributing to society at large and not just interacting with people your own age, people will take notice. How about doing some voluntary work? There’s nothing better for helping you look outside yourself for additional inspiration and a great perspective on the world.

    3 – Turn off the media
    Every now and then, it does us good to do something differently. I think this could/should include short periods (or longer if we can manage) where we actively disconnect ourselves from the digital world. Turn off your internet connection, turn off your phone. Pack the computer games console into the cupboard for an afternoon. Do or see something you wouldn’t normally do without your media attached – be that taking a walk, a bus ride, or doing some exercise. Anything at all! What do you notice about the world without this connection at your fingertips? Is it a scary thing? Don’t forget this is how everyone lived their lives almost totally 15+ years ago. Your parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents will remember this time with great affection! It is a great way to decompress and also to work out what your own thoughts and opinions are without interruption.

    Sources:
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/02/one-in-10-jobless-yougov-poll
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25559089