When is a space like a speed bump?

Neighborhood moms and dads may profess to appreciate speed bumps, but once they’re out of their own cul-de-sacs, they curse the forced slow-downs as much as the rest of us. Likewise, when a ‘speed bump’ makes me stumble over an otherwise smooth bit of reading, I feel just as jarred and aggravated.

I’ve begun encountering such a bump in a perfectly good word with jolting frequency, and I’m getting whiplash. See if you can pick out the culprit in this example:

“If you can not attend the meeting, please let me know.”

Did you hit the brakes over that needless space in “cannot”? I don’t know who started making writers doubt themselves, but it must have been someone of significance, because even the most talented of my colleagues are now inserting a space where no space need ever have appeared.

I started to doubt myself, in fact. Maybe I missed some trend, where “cannot” joined the ranks of things your old English teacher taught you that no longer apply. However, I am blissfully happy to learn this isn’t the case. “Cannot” as one word is still correct, according to:

The University of Sussex, which says:
The negative of can is cannot (one word), not can not (two words).
I cannot do X = I am unable to do X.
I can not do X = I am able not to do X.

Online, someone asked the Chicago Manual of Style experts:
“Clearly, the word ‘cannot’ is in the dictionary as one word. But does this mean that it is incorrect to say ‘can no’” as two words? This controversy is raging in my office and has some people very upset. What are your thoughts?”

Chicago answered thus:

“Sometimes you can not say something more easily than you can say it. In the preceding sentence, ‘can not’ is accurate and ‘cannot’ wouldn’t make sense. Constructions like that, however, are often confusing or ambiguous, in which case rephrasing is wise, e.g., ‘Sometimes it’s easier not to say something than to say it.’”

OK, that’s a bit hard to follow, but Chicago’s point is this: “can not” as two words means “capable of not doing something,” which is quite different from cannot do (incapable of doing) something.

Merriam Webster lists one form of the word: cannot, with no space. “Can not” isn’t even listed as a variant.

The Associated Press Stylebook simply has one word for this entry: Cannot.
(No explanation needed. It’s obvious, isn’t it?)

I encourage you to go back to bravely using “cannot” as one word without a space when you mean “can’t.” Anything that makes your reader hesitate over what you really meant to say is getting in the way of your message.

And I cannot stand it anymore. I’m incapable of standing it. I can’t stand it. Can you?

 

 

Strunk’s “Elements” is easy listening on CD

Every writer needs six books on her shelf:

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White.
The Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer.
The Elements of Editing: A Modern Guide for Editors and Journalists by Arthur Plotnik.
A dictionary (I prefer Merriam-Webster).
A thesaurus.
The Associated Press Style Manual (or the Chicago Manual of Style if your employer demands it).

You don’t generally read these over a cup of coffee on the front porch, so their content is a bit challenging to take in. But thanks to Recorded Books, you can now listen to one of them - The Elements of Style - on CD, narrated by award-winning writer Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes.

McCourt’s Irish accent and thoughtful rendition animate E.B. White’s first-person introduction. White (the author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little) met Strunk while his student at Cornell University, where the professor used his own textbook, The Elements of Style, for the class. White rediscovered Strunk and his book years later, after he was getting paid to be a writer himself (for The New Yorker). McCourt’s voice reflects the pride White felt in being asked to edit his learned professor’s masterwork.

McCourt’s voice resonates with credibility as he pronounces Strunk’s grammar rules. “Omit needless words!” he intones. “Use the active voice. Avoid a succession of loose sentences.” The essay even made me chuckle a couple of times - a feat few grammar books can boast of.

The reading gets a bit drier once McCourt moves into the chapters and examples, but not by much. The benefit to listening is that you can’t skim through anything, so you don’t miss anything.

After a while, you start to get it.

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

I borrowed my copy of this wonderful audio book from the library. Get yours and sharpen your own writing skills.

 

 

Hit your audience where they live

When you think of driving right now, what do you think of?

The price of gas.

It’s in the news every day. Presidential candidates are discussing it. People are altering travel plans to minimize it. Airlines are going under because of it.

What if someone told you that the simple act of putting some air in your tires is like saving 10 cents a gallon on gas?

Actually, I don’t know the correct figure and can’t even estimate it. I’ll bet the Rubber Manufacturers Association can, though.

So during last week’s National Tire Safety Week, in all the RMA’s press releases and consumer materials, why wasn’t that the message?

Instead, the big news was that 25 states issued proclamations or statements supporting the tire industry’s motorist education efforts, and that an RMA survey showed that only one in seven drivers check their tire pressure.

I’m not arguing with the need to check your tire pressure. Under-inflated tires contribute to hundreds of fatalities and thousands of injuries each year - important information to share with consumers. But first you have to catch your audience’s attention, and there’s no better way to do that than to start where they are, with what affects them immediately and personally.
 

 

Pulitzer Prize for feature writing well deserved

Gene Weingarten, staff writer for The Washington Post, is this year’s deserving Pulitzer Prize winner for feature writing for his story “Pearls Before Breakfast.”

This piece unfolds slowly, drawing you in. The violinist is identified only as “he,” someone who is seemingly playing for money just outside a Washington, D.C., metro station. Pedestrians begin to pass by. We’ve all been there. So Weingarten puts us, the readers, right there, into his story. We become his pedestrians. Do we stop to listen? Do we throw in a couple of bucks to assuage our guilt? Do we pretend not to notice the guy? Without realizing it, we are now part of what’s happening. And to stop reading now is nearly impossible.

Then Weingarten lets you in on the secret. This performance is a setup. He tells you who the musician is - gasp! You sit back and smile. Now you know what’s going to happen next.

Boy, are you going to be surprised - another writing hook to keep your readers intrigued.

And so is the musician. This world-renowned figure ends up sharing his own unexpected feelings about what occurs, giving readers a most rare, honest glimpse into the moments of uncertainty of a genius. For me, this was the hidden gem in the story. Because this was a new experience for the violinist, I got to share his feelings right along with him. Worth the read all by itself.

In the end, there’s a sadness to this story, yet a feeling of triumph, too. There’s controversy - of course no one stopped; they’re on their way to work! But I was left most with a feeling of wonder, that something like this could occur in any of our lives at any moment - and hoping that I would be smart enough not to miss it.

This is feature writing at its best: A story that pulls you in, makes you a part of the events, and stays with you long after you’re done reading. Congratulations, Mr. Weingarten. And thank you.

Read Pearls Before Breakfast

 

Look to great headlines for inspiration

One of the toughest forms of writing for me is the headline, followed closely by those snippets in a table of contents that are supposed to intrigue readers enough to want to read more. They’re challenging because they force you to condense your thoughts into just a few words, yet those words need to carry quite a punch.

Lots of writers offer advice on how to write headlines; a couple of my favorites are listed at the end of this post. I get most inspired by great examples, so I offer a few for your own motivation.

First, from BusinessWeek’s Small Business Success Stories:

Headline: “Restaurateurs Don’t Just Wing It”
Copy: “Passion isn’t enough. You’ll need a sound concept and management experience, and you should know that some of the most popular assumptions about restaurant failure are wrong.”

Popular assumptions being wrong? I have to know more - and find out if I would have known better. I love the way the headline plays on a favorite food, wings.

Of the two that follow, I like the first; alliteration is pleasing to the ear, and the writer puts an intriguing spin on the old concept of Arab-Israeli peace prospects. The over-used “unique perspective” in the second part of this pair disappoints me, though.

Headline: “An Entrepreneurial Path to Peace”
Copy: “By providing small businesses with incubators, Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer hopes to give Israelis and Arabs economic opportunities that will lead to peace.”

Headline: “Who Is Stef Wertheimer?”
Copy: “The Israeli industrialist has a unique perspective on how to reduce conflict in the Middle East.”

From The New York Times:

Headline: “Hope and Fear Ahead of Zimbabwe Vote”
Copy: “In Zimbabwe, where voters go to the polls on Saturday, elections are customarily preceded by a campaign of state-supported intimidation and skullduggery.” (A word like skullduggery is going to get my attention every time, and its use in a story about Zimbabwe surprised me.)

This next headline begs the question, “Well, why not?” and almost forces the reader to find the story. The copy would be better without the ambiguous “several.”

Headline: “Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why”
Copy: “Virus? Bacteria? Environmental toxin? Scientists are racing to diagnose a syndrome that is threatening several bat species.”

Opposites attract, which makes the following headline interesting.

Headline: “When Open Access Kept the Door Closed”
Copy: “Google has praised the government rules that will force Verizon to open its cellphone network to rivals. But experience suggests it may be hard to take advantage of these rules.”

From More Magazine:

This first story uses the popular magazine tactic of numbers, as in “10 ways to make yourself look younger.” It works with readers.

Headline: “How Much for that Dream?”
Copy: “Can you afford to change your life? 9 women tell what it cost.”

This headline sets up an artificial either-or that immediately gets readers thinking. Then the copy plays on most mothers’ worst fear.

Headline: “College vs. Retirement”
Copy: “Why it’s time to put the kids second - and why that won’t make you a bad parent.”

Finally, from one of the most well-written magazines on the planet, Smithsonian Magazine:

Headline: “Wild Things: Life as we know it”
Copy: “An Australian conservation group uses Hubble space telescope software to identify animals by their markings.”

A telescope for looking at animals? How unexpected! Tell me more.

Headline: “Pay Dirt in Montana”
Copy: “A librarian’s sleuthing turns up a crime with at least 100 victims.”

Oooh, crime — and a librarian. Again, the unusual, unexpected juxtaposition gets my attention.

For some great headline-writing advice, check out How to Write Headlines that Work at Copyblogger and The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill at FreelanceSwitch.com.

Care to share the best headline you’ve ever written or read?
 

Buckley-sized words may interfere with your message

William F. Buckley’s death gave media writers the chance to remind us all that they, like Buckley, know how to use words we don’t hear every day. The New York Times  found “polysyllabic exuberance” and “perspicacious.” The Washington Post took “erudite” and “trenchant” and used “polysyllabic,” too. The World Socialist Web Site (did you know there was one?) used a word I never knew existed: “encomiums.”

 But Geoff Nunberg, linguist for National Public Radio, points out the topper:  The Economist aptly called Buckley the “sesquipidalian conservative icon” — which means he was a lover of long words.

Buckley could get away with language like this, because we expected it from him. He also used just enough humor to keep from sounding insufferable.

Many of us, though, don’t have this luxury. When we try to use long or unfamiliar words simply because we think they make us sound more credible or more intelligent, we’re likely having the opposite effect. More often than not, those words and the stilted language that goes along with them get in the way of our message.

As Nunberg said,

“That’s the price you pay for using sesquipidalian words: The higher they soar, the further removed they are from the world of feeling and sensation on the ground below. And as Horace said, you have to set them aside if you want to touch the heart.”

If corporate philanthropy can bring world peace, shout about it

When CEOs and UN delegates from around the world gather to discuss how corporations can “galvanize unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest,” would you start an article about this event by noting it ended with the Empire State Building lit in blue and green, “the official colors of the day”?Providing local color to a story is good, but this isn’t what your writing coach meant.

In From Local to Global, Measuring Corporate Philanthropy’s Impact for onPhilanthropy.com, Elisabeth Anderson and Tom Watson brings much-needed attention to an international forum pursuing a mission of corporate philanthropy. The forum consists of some heavy hitters: Akhtar Badshah, senior director of community affairs of Microsoft; Christina Gold, CEO of Western Union; Kathy Bushkin Calvin, EVP and COO of the United Nations Foundation; and Hilde Johnson, deputy executive director of UNICEF, among them.

And these are heavy issues,

“focused on how corporate philanthropy can contribute to advancing the Millennium Development Goals, particularly for sustainable development. The eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015, form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions.”

I’m just sorry that the authors didn’t capture readers’ attention right away with information such as this, buried deep within the story:

“If rich countries cannot meet the commitment of a fraction of 1% to meet these goals, it will be impossible to keep peace in this world.”

Too many writers covering an event choose to write their recaps in a fairly chronological order, instead of providing readers with what they want: Context. They want to know what happened that’s most important. You can tell them the conference was in mid-town Manhattan with blue and green lights only if doing so helps pull them into the story.

If it doesn’t, then save these details for later - or discard them.

Postal Service hides brochure under self-congratulatory cover letter

The Federal Trade Commission created a brochure to help consumers avoid identity theft. And then the U.S. Postal Service hid it. 

Let me back up. I recently received a white envelope emblazoned with the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE logo February that looked suspiciously like junk mail. I’ve been desperate for an order form for stamps, though, so instead of tossing it into the recycling bin, I opened it.  

To my chagrin, an otherwise useful brochure – already hidden from view inside an uninspiring envelope – was buried under a cover letter. 

To my additional chagrin, the cover letter was four paragraphs and 268 words long. 

Technically, the letter wasn’t badly written – a passive sentence or two, but nothing more. But 62 words told me what was already in the brochure, and another 39 words told me that a brochure was in the envelope (in case I hadn’t noticed, I guess) and what the brochure contained.  

Oh, and the letter mentioned how hard the U.S. Postal Service is working to protect my identity – which credit-taking was, I suspect, the whole point. 

By now, I’d lost interest in the whole thing and moved on to my next piece of mail. 

My point is this: If you’ve written and designed a brochure to capture people’s attention, then let it do so. Keep your ego – and your signature line – out of the equation.

Talk, don’t sell, to readers

In a recent teleseminar with authors Seth Godin, Dan Pink, Rich Sloan and Debbie Weil, the moderator introduced the idea that companies today “aren’t selling to your customers – you’re talking to them.”

 The point of this fascinating (and free) discussion was this: Companies no longer can afford to market to the masses, viewing everyone who lives and breathes as prospects. Instead, as Rich Sloan said, companies must “create dialogue, move away from the idea of selling, have there be a relationship in place where there are all sorts of contextual opportunities for people to learn.”  

Seth Godin’s basic reply: You’re right. If you’re a marketer, your job isn’t about creating a jingle. It’s about education.  This discussion brought me back to my last post and Mike Klein’s quote from George Bernard Shaw:  “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”  

Companies that have been writing Web, brochure, e-letter and annual report copy aimed at pushing out their messages regardless of who’s reading it or how they’re reacting are going to find themselves ignored, if they aren’t already.

I’ve worked in non-profits most of my life, organizations filled with people who are passionate about what they do – and rightly so. Trouble is, just because they’re passionate about a cause doesn’t mean everyone else is. And just because they have something to say doesn’t mean people will listen, especially if they’re using a writing style that’s not educational or interesting.  

If you’re not telling authentic, well-written stories, you’re wasting your time. Communication is not taking place.  

 

     

 

Pare down your employee newsletter

At Ragan.com, Mike Klein makes a case for paring down or even eliminating company newsletters. How many of us have gotten, or written, company newsletters we don’t bother to read because we don’t perceive them to have value – and thus not to be worth reading?  

My favorite line from Klein’s article: “A key problem with many newsletters is that they tend to publish unattributed information as fact” (otherwise known as the “because I said so” approach).  My favorite quote: “George Bernard Shaw once said, ‘The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’” 

I’ve seen employee newsletters that seem to be little more than venues for people who can’t otherwise get published. The employees of Wayne County, N.C., were subjected to this type of newsletter in February. Although the monthly newsletter’s mission is to “acquaint its readers with personnel from each department within the county,” the editor used one-fourth of the space to provide a history of Valentine’s Day and President’s Day, one-fourth for anniversaries, one-fourth for birthdays and just one page for an employee profile.  

And we haven’t even mentioned the clip art. 

Have you ever gotten an employee newsletter you didn’t read?