Give your company a voice
Over the last few months I’ve covered the nuts and bolts of punctuation in my blog posts and I hope you’ve found them useful. (You can see what you missed here). Today, as luck would have it, I stumbled across this rhyme which neatly sums up the ten golden rules of punctuation as laid down by a Victorian schoolmistress:
Sentences begin with a capital letter
So as to make your writing better.
Sometimes it’s not what you say that matters – it’s more important what you leave out, as these somewhat selective reviews of West End farce ‘Barking in Essex’ demonstrate. “An outstanding cast… The glorious Keeley Hawes,” enthuses the billboard outside the theatre and, indeed, The Observer reviewer did use these exact words before noting that “actors of this calibre deserve better work than this – let alone the audiences who pay to see them.”
The play’s website says the Sunday Telegraph pronounced it “A superb ensemble”.
Last week, I shared some commonly misspelt words to help you avoid the embarrassment of spelling slips that could harm your carefully cultivated professional image. Here are some more misspelt or misused words to avoid:
1) Peek, peak and pique
Like ‘there’ and ‘their’, here’s another example of words that sound the same but mean entirely different things. ‘Peek’ is taking a quick look at something – like a sneak peek – whereas a ‘peak’ is used to refer to the summit of a mountain or a pinnacle of performance.
One of my pet peeves is spelling mistakes. With the ubiquitous computer spellcheck and even a good old-fashioned dictionary, today there really can be no excuse. However expert you are in your specialist field, basic spelling mistakes will inevitably cast doubt on your professionalism and harm your credibility. A big cause of spelling slip-ups is the misuse of common words.
Here are some we made earlier. . .
1) They’re, Their,
It’s one thing knowing how to write correctly and quite another to be able to do so with style and flair. In my experience, it’s that indefinable something which separates out those who write perfectly serviceable business communications as part of their job and those who write for a living. There are various literary devices to add colour to your writing – metaphors, similes and hyperbole, to name just a few – but this week’s post focuses on alliteration and wordplay.
Lost in translation
It’s often said that the British and Americans are “two people divided by a common language” and an amusing table currently circulating on the internet shows just how true that is. Just look at what others understand by these commonly used phrases:
What the British say
What the British mean
What others understand
I hear what you say
I disagree and do not want to discuss it further
He accepts my point of view
With the greatest respect
You are an idiot
He is listening to me
That’s not bad
That’s good
That’s poor
That is a very brave proposal
You are insane
He thinks I have courage
Quite good
A bit disappointing
Quite good
I would suggest
Do it…or else! Read more »
In my last post, I spoke about the dangers of being circumlocutory – that’s long-winded to you and me – and the importance of being direct. Here’s a by no means exhaustive list of some common culprits to avoid in your writing at all costs:
Instead of
Try
As yet
Yet
Due to the fact that
Because
By virtue of the fact that
Because
In all probability
Probably
In the majority of cases
Usually
In close proximity to
Near
In excess of
More
In isolation
Alone
In many cases
Often
In order to
To
In the absence of
Without
In the event that
If
In the near future
Soon
Make a recommendation that
Recommend that
Of the opinion that
Believe
Prior to
Before
Until such time as
Until
With reference to
About
If you have any favourites of your own,
If a speaker gives you the urge to shout “Get on with it!”, it’s likely they are committing the sin of ‘circumlocution’ – making their point in a rambling, roundabout way rather than getting straight to the heart of the matter. People guilty of circumlocution (also called periphrasis) typically employ unnecessarily long words, often incorrectly or inappropriately, in circuitous, unwieldy sentences. This frustrating trait is sometimes a deliberate ploy to appear intellectual or authoritative but can also be inadvertent when we struggle to find the precise word we want.
Like thousands of others yesterday afternoon, I was gripped by the fight-to-the-death battle on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Congratulations to Andy Murray on becoming the first Brit in 77 years to – finally – take the title at our most famous tennis tournament.
My joy and excitement were marred just the teensiest bit by the crowd shots in the TV coverage when on at least three occasions (yes, I counted), the BBC’s cameras honed in on an undoubtedly enthusiastic but nonetheless grammatically challenged tennis fan holding aloft a sign urging “Lets make history”.
One very simple way to make your writing more interesting is to use an active, rather than passive, voice. To explain the difference, would you rather do something or have something done to you? Being aware of the voice you are using can make a huge impact on your writing. Look at these examples:
Active She called the puppy Winston
Passive The puppy was called Winston
Active Her husband bought her flowers
Passive The flowers were bought by her husband
See the difference?
