The sun has begun to set on my time as a public sector B2B editor. I am peering into the dark abyss of unemployment. There’s a lot of ‘restructuring’ going on where I work. Restructuring in this context means paying management consultants a lot of money to advise who to make redundant. But I am undaunted. I shall find a way of editing text – no one can stop me.
I have been getting increasingly depressed about not understanding the words. What with that, and having to work through all that stuff about sewage, last week my life as an editor seemed to be at an all-time low. Then, rushing to meet my Friday deadline, I ran into a nightmare 57-word sentence. › Continue reading
This week I bought a jacket – some outdoor wear so that I can make the most of the glorious British summer without catching cold. I read the label of course, and marvelled at the quality of the copywriting without actually understanding the words. It wasn’t really written in plain English – it was more about concepts – but it certainly reassured me that I’d got value for money. › Continue reading
I’ve been using Google Analytics to measure visits to my blog. Every week I discover that new users are checking the site, but are they coming back? Then I found out about this thing called Blogpulse.com which tells you ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ in the blogosphere. I was surprised to see that editorial issues are not hot – positively frigid, don’t even come up in the search facility. › Continue reading
In ‘The Complete Plain Words’, Ernest Gowers says that metaphors tend to be used indiscriminately and soon get stale “but not before they have elbowed out words perhaps more commonplace but with meanings more precise”. › Continue reading
You would think that after at least ten or 15 years of the web people would know that brief is good and justified text is difficult to read online. I don’t want to get sued, but I have to say it’s just as well this training company doesn’t teach web writing or plain English. And why are they called Sold Out Trainers – a name that suggests a faint tang of sweaty feet, without actually meaning old running shoes at all? › Continue reading
Life just gets more and more terrifying, doesn’t it? If you thought swine flu and climate change were scary, then gird yourself for the terror of a bank holiday weekend. If you’re planning to leave home, you’d better think again. Statistics show that you’re more than likely to “face delays” as you “brave the chaos”.
Of course, if you’re travelling by train, tannoy announcements apologising and offering pathetic excuses will only add to your misery › Continue reading
I went on a course this week – ‘Effective copywriting’ – all part of my plan to transform myself from grubby B2B sub to highly-paid marketing professional. It was a pretty good course and I think I may have picked up some useful tricks about lateral thinking. But, the tutor would insist that we should avoid using the same word twice. He called this ‘elegant variation’. › Continue reading
Britons are – according to the pollsters this week – more pessimistic about their country’s economy than the people of other ‘leading’ nations. And Stephen Roach, Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, has warned of:
“a further destabilising outbreak of asset bubbles”.
Of course I don’t understand these words, but I suspect it means that we’re all going to lose our jobs and homes. That is everyone except my contact in the Employment Service who, in cheerful mood, has sent me a sample of the ‘Jobcentre Plus Lean’ newsletter. › Continue reading
Following some very frightening revelations from the world’s leading climate scientists this week, George Monbiot has used his Guardian blog to suggest the term ‘climate change’ needs updating.
The expression ‘climate change’ was first advanced in a memo from the Republican political strategist Frank Luntz, who found that those attending his focus groups thought it sounded less scary than ‘global warming’.