Writing, Editing, Proofreading: Lori Baer

In print and online, here, there and everywhere in business communications, vaguely impressive words overused and imitated to the point of irrelevance waste time and money because the resulting message fails to differentiate or persuade. Under my skin at the moment are:

1. at the end of the day
2. best practices
3. cutting edge
4. exciting
5. great
6. innovate/innovative/innovation
7. join the conversation
8. key
9. new
10. passion/passionate
11. unique

Oops, there are actually 11…a sign my list could go on forever. The list of communicators and marketers equally peeved could also go on forever. With no effort, these pieces found me: David Meerman Scott’s The Gobbedlygook Manifesto, Top 10 Overused Buzzwords in LinkedIn Profiles in the United States, and Why is Business Writing so Awful?

Business writing tips the scale to awful because it’s weighted down by people too lazy or too busy to make time for precise writing. Repeated to nauseating extremes, these words get glossed over by readers who’ve grown indifferent to redundant generalities. Empty idiom makes your brand sound just like the other and does nothing to convince people of the merit of what you do or sell.

It really doesn’t take much effort to write much better. Help yourself with these simple suggestions for avoiding trivial language and distinguishing your brand messages.

1. Use www.thesaurus.com   
2. Right click on the lazy word in your document and choose “synonyms” from the menu.
3. Keep a “word and phrase diary” of words and expressions you like from your readings. Revisit this list for inspiration when your copy sounds boring.

“Immunocompromised.” I came across this word the other day while reading one of the nutrition newsletters I subscribe to and guess what happened? I stopped reading. I had to put the breaks on the story in order to sound out and make sense of this mash up of consonants – four “m’s” alone!

“Those people with compromised immune systems” delivers six words instead of just one — to which you might say, “Isn’t concise writing with fewer words preferred?” As a general rule, yes, but not when those fewer words come at the expense of readability and understanding. Immunocompromised may be the clinically correct term. But the word’s unfamiliarity to the publication’s average-consumer audience highjacks immediate understanding and flow of thoughts.  The word’s clunky configuration also causes the reader to stumble away from the story to make sense of the word.

Good writing uses words that not only facilitate the reader’s understanding of topic, but also keep people focused on the story (not the writing) in order to allow the message to be heard rather than detracted from.