We literally have a problem

by Jack Posted on March 16, 2012

In the early days of the 21st century we literally have a problem.  It’s the use – or, more to the point, the misuse – of the word literally.

According to a spokesperson for a well-known clothing retailer, a new range of sweaters has been ‘literally flying out the door’.  A woman named Tracey had to ‘literally jump through hoops’ to get a job.  (And, no, the job in question was not with a circus.)  While another woman – also named Tracey – ‘literally died’ when she discovered that she had won a competition organised by her local radio station.

Most careful users of language would agree that literal means something like: using words in their usual or primary sense, without metaphor or allegory.

You might be tempted to say: Well, so what?  Any normal reader will realise that the sweaters did not really fly out the door on mysterious wings.  Tracey Number One did not really jump through hoops.  And Tracey Number Two did not really die.  To object to the use of literally in these three examples is just out-dated pedantry.  But is it?

It is hard to think of another single word that can substitute for literally.  Exactly, precisely, really, truly … these all go part of the way.  But when you literally mean literally, literally is probably the only word there is.  And it’s certainly the best word there is.

Misusing it will, in time, rob us of a very useful word.  So, it’s literally time to stop misusing literally.

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The bestest best there is

by Jack Posted on March 11, 2012

Tucked away in a corner of the rather crowded nook that passes for my memory is a fragment of a conversation that I overheard several years ago.

Two young soccer fans were discussing players.  One of the lads remarked that a particular player was ‘dead good’, which was praise of the highest order.

‘Yeah, but’ – and his friend named another player – ‘is way better.’

Not to be outdone, the first lad nominated a third player as ‘the best’. And, for a moment or two, the matter seemed to be settled.

But then the second lad introduced yet another name, suggesting that this particular player was ‘better than best’.

I could almost hear the Gotcha!

‘You can’t have better than best,’ his friend said, triumphantly.  ‘Best is the bestest best there is.’

I am often reminded of this conversation when I read some of the claims made by organisations that want to sell me stuff.

In the past few weeks I’ve been offered:

Several ‘free gifts’.  (Well, if it’s a gift, it can’t be anything but free.)

At least one ‘incredibly unique’ product.  (Sorry, chaps, it’s either unique or it’s not.  There are no degrees of uniqueness.)

Several items that are ‘exclusive’ to me.  (I don’t think so.  You’ve also offered them – exclusively – to at least six of my neighbours.)

Perhaps I could just remind the authors of these commercial missives that best is still the bestest best there is.

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A lesson from Elmore Leonard

by Jack Posted on March 6, 2012

Recently, I was given a rather substantial document to read.  It was just short of 80 pages long – most of it text.

‘This is going to take me a moment or two to read,’ I said.

‘Well, you can probably skip quite a bit of it,’ the author replied.

Oh, really?

I’m pretty sure that it was Elmore Leonard who, when asked how he managed to keep the action in his books moving so quickly, said: ‘I leave out the parts that people skip.’

At KiwiStreet, we find this strategy also works well when it comes to writing proposals, project summaries, and reports. 

Leaving out the parts that people skip helps both the reader and the writer.  It helps the writer to think about what is important, and to express what is important clearly and succinctly.  And it saves the reader time, and helps to ensure that he or she doesn’t skip any of the important bits.

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Quiz belongs in the pub

by Jack Posted on February 20, 2012

According to one popular story, the word quiz owes its existence to a Dublin theatre impresario named Daly.

Mr Daly is said to have had posters bearing the letters Q, U, I and Z plastered about Dublin one night in order to win a bet that he could introduce a new word into the English language in just 24 hours.  Unfortunately, no one has ever been able to find any evidence of Mr Daly’s posters.  And the Latin phrase Qui es? (who are you?) seems a more likely source.

The most common meaning of quiz is ‘a test of knowledge, especially between individuals or teams, as an entertainment’.   The ever-popular pub quiz is an example. 

But over the past few years, journalists seem to have developed an annoying preference for using quiz in place of question.  Consider these recent examples:

‘… officials had travelled to Queensland to quiz officials’  (Talk about talking to yourselves.)

‘Local man quizzed over disappearance’

‘Police quiz break-in suspect’

Does the use of quiz make the writer sound more stylish?  Better informed?  More erudite?  Not in my opinion.

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The changing language of cricket

by Jack Posted on February 15, 2012

One of my earliest memories of TV is of watching an hour or so of a cricket match.  I think the match may have been a test match between England and South Africa – although I can’t be sure. 

The picture was in soggy shades of grey, and the camerawork was extremely basic.  But what really made an impression was not what I was seeing, but what I was hearing.  It may have been the very first time that I heard a cricket commentary.

Thanks to the detailed language of cricket, it is entirely possible (with the help of a good commentator or two) to watch a match with your eyes closed.  If the bowler bowls a ball of a good length, just outside off stump, and the batsman manages to open the face and steer the ball down through the vacant third man position for another boundary, you know exactly what is going on.

But, over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the language of cricket is changing.

The pitch on which the game is played has become the wicket.  In modern parlance, the curator (who used to be the groundsman) is said to have prepared ‘a first class wicket full of runs’.  (On occasion, this may also be described as a first class track.)  

Of course, this use of wicket is not to be confused with the stumps at either end of the wicket – which are also known as wickets – or the wickets that bowlers take by participating in the dismissal of batsmen.  ‘Roneel Hira picked up three wickets for just 19 runs.’

The batsman (and it does always seem to be a batsman – even when the batsman is a woman – is increasingly referred to as the batter, perhaps to put him (or her) on an equal footing with the bowler.

If the bowler is a fast bowler, he (or she) is now often referred to simply as a quick – pressing an adjective into service as a noun.  While wide, another adjective, is pressed into service as a verb when umpires wide a delivery which, in their view, is too far outside off stump to allow the batter to play ‘a proper cricket shot’.  (It also seems to have become a convention, in all short forms of the game, to wide all deliveries down the leg side.)

A batsman who gently pushes the ball into a space in order to take a quick single is said to be nurdling.  This usage has been around for some time.  But commentators do seem to have greatly increased the frequency of its use in recent times – perhaps because, in limited-overs matches in particular, batsmen (or batters) try to score off every single delivery.

Happily, the names of the fielding positions (fine leg, square leg, midwicket, long on, etc) have remained largely intact.  But I’ve noticed that it is increasingly common to refer to a deep fielder who covers a broad section of the boundary as a sweeper.

I wonder what W G Grace would make of a modern cricket commentary.

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We write what we read

by Jack Posted on February 9, 2012

To some extent, what we read shapes the way we write.

If you read enough clear, concise writing, you are likely to adopt such a style yourself.  You may not succeed entirely.  But your reader will certainly feel the influence.  On the other hand, if you spend your day reading abbreviated text speak, that too is likely to influence your style.

A major influence on people’s prose style over the past 30 or 40 years has been the newspapers they read.

As a general rule, the broadsheets have tended to make a clear distinction between fact and opinion.  Tabloids, on the other hand, have tended to present opinion dressed up as (sensational) fact.

There is also a significant difference in the vocabularies required to read and comprehend the different styles of newspapers.

But over the past few years, as the variety of media has expanded, the gap between broadsheets and tabloids has narrowed.  Tabloids, competing with 24/7 TV news and the internet, have become even more tabloid.  And many of the traditional broadsheets have joined them.

Today, both styles of newspaper tend to go for attention-grabbing headlines that may or may not have much to do with the story that follows.  Both have become careless with words, mixing up alternate and alternative, expect and anticipate, prevaricate and procrastinate  (to list but a few).  And both tend to mix fact with opinion – without making it clear to the reader which is which.

So it is perhaps not surprising that much of today’s business writing also lacks style and clarity.

Maybe it’s time for business executives to revisit the classics of English literature.

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Rule number one: Keep the reader reading

by Jack Posted on January 14, 2012

For me, one of the hallmarks of good writing is that each sentence, each paragraph, leads the reader to want to read more.  This is as true of a commercial pitch document as it is of a short story or a novel.

Robert Drewe’s novel Our Sunshine, a fictionalised account of the life and death of Ned Kelly, begins with the sentence: ‘The lion is out of sorts.’  And immediately we want to know more.  Which lion?  Why?  And what does a lion have to do with Ned Kelly?

Jeremy Clarkson begins one of his weekend newspaper columns with the words ‘Making Top Gear used to be easy.’  And we think: Used to be?  Are you saying that it’s not easy anymore?  Why not?  Tell us more.

Corporation X, on the other hand, begins a recent pitch document with:

‘Corporation X is a leading international provider of proven custom-tailored customer-centric solutions to large and medium sized businesses seeking to utilise leading edge technologies to extend their influence and market share within specific chosen markets and regions both locally and globally.’ 

Suddenly the room seems stiflingly hot.  Our eyelids become heavy.  And we fight to stay awake.  And, as one of my colleagues has been known to say: ‘Nobody buys much while they are asleep.’

A study by The Pelican Partnership found that fewer than one in ten senior executives reads all or most of documents they receive from organisations that want to sell to them.  Several reasons were suggested.  But, in most cases, it boiled down to the fact that the intended readers didn’t expect the experience to be rewarding. 

‘I have better things to do with my time,’ one senior manager said.

And yet most of the managers admitted to reading all or most of at least three novels a year, as well as countless magazine and online articles.

I think there’s an important lesson here for writers of pitch documents: Your competition is not Corporation Y or Corporation Z.  Your real competition is Robert Drewe and Jeremy Clarkson and every other writer who understands how to keep the reader reading.

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J P Donleavy’s ‘The Ginger Man’

by Jack Posted on December 7, 2011

I believe they are known as ‘where were you when’ moments. 

Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?  Where were you when Neil Armstrong took that one small step for man?  Where were you when Elvis died? 

Unlike many of my friends, I can’t remember where I was when any of those things happened.  I was alive for all of them.  I just can’t remember where I was.  Or what I was doing. 

But I can remember – with surprising detail – buying some of the books that have turned out to be my perennial favourites. 

For example, I can vividly remember buying my first book by J P Donleavy.  It was … 

Sunday afternoon, five o’clock.  A flash of lightening, a rumble of thunder hard on its heels.  The first gobstopper drops of the next shower bouncing off already overflowing puddles. 

Just duck into this handy corner shop for some shelter.  The tinkling bell waking the proprietor.  Good day to you, sir.  Not that it’s a good day, that’s for sure.  Feigning interest in the merchandise to avoid the rain.  No weather for a white man, is it?   Just a turn of phrase of course.  No offence intended.  And hopefully none taken.  Don’t suppose it rains like this in India. 

Apparently not a talker this one.  Watching like a hawk from behind his counter.  Hands out of sight.  Probably with a softball bat at the ready.  Just in case. 

The rain beginning to ease.  Move quickly now and I should make it home before the next downpour.  But first I need to show a bit of goodwill.  Make a small purchase.  At times like this it’s a pity that I don’t smoke.  Twenty B&H and a box of your finest matches.  But no point in that.  A book perhaps?  Always find room for another book.  The Ginger Man by J P Donleavy.  ‘Comic, dirty and delightful.’  V S Naipaul.  An opinion to be valued I think, sir.  Although I could be mistaken.  That bell again, this time tinkling my departure. 

And even in the rain,

The world’s a better place

With a new book

In your pocket.

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