Today I came across an example of writing where the most fundamental question in the reader’s mind was, very confusingly, left unanswered.
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Am I being too simplistic to think "falling prices" would have been a better way of putting it?
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Counterintuitive perhaps, but the less you know about the topic you’re writing about, the more you’re likely to write stuff that will be useful to your reader.
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The word “meritocracy” was originally pejorative, describing a dystopian world in which the elite use the idea of I.Q. + effort to maintain their position.
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You’d think no one truly interested in either culture or the arts would use the tautology "cultural arts". After all, the arts are a part of culture and culture includes a variety arts.
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I’m not convinced that your boss really does like your bad corporatese, but if you believe this to be the case, perhaps you might like to direct your boss to a certain Warren Buffett.
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It’s not enough that you’ve bored me rigid with that overused tailoring metaphor, “bespoke”. By pairing it with “customised”, you’re telling me you think I’m too dim to understand what you’re getting at.
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This tautology sounds as if you’re trying to cover your back about not providing a definitive list - which makes you seem rather desperate. And that’s so not a good look in a writer.
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The title of this post is one of George Orwell’s oft-quoted rules of writing. And it’s a rule that business writers would do well to take more notice of.
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No doubt the employees of all “worldwide, global businesses” are also committed to the equally tautological “working in partnership together”. Ah, we’re all so collaborative, aren’t we?
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Remember: your business is either global or worldwide. It can’t be both.
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Only inexperienced writers believe that when you're quoting several people in an article, you need to avoid repeating the word “said”.
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News and feature articles are an established staple of the comms professional's repertoire. But you can always spot when they've been put together by an inexperienced writer. The biggest give away? How they handle quotes.
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The more you emphasise what’s great about your product (or service or skill) the more impact your words will have, right? Not if you fall into the trap of tautology.
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Still obviously the silly season if this story about Tesco makes the BBC news, but interesting for us language nuts.
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Whenever a client wants to revise my work, the rhythm is always the first thing to go. And whenever I find myself criticising another writer’s work, it’s often their lack of rhythm that grates.
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Bad business writing is awash with filler verbs such as “driving”, “delivering”, “focusing on” and “achieving”.
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Now that every other item with a price tag seems to have the word “designer” attached to it, something more impressive was needed for those wanting to stay ahead of the retail game.
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The word “leverage” has to be top of my list of jargon that should be banned. I’d never really come across it since ‘O’ Level Physics. But then I started working in marketing and I heard it all the time.
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