While I’d never try to find the light side in the horrific tornados that scraped across the southern U.S. last week, I can’t let one story I read pass without comment. The story made reference to one of the Alabama communities that was devastated.
One line in the story read: Neighborhoods there were leveled by a massive tornado caught on video by a tower-mounted news camera that barreled through late Wednesday afternoon.
Did you catch what jarred my brain?
Quotation marks are a very familiar punctuation device, and we’d have a tough time surviving without them. As a famous writer once said, “Quotation marks allow us to identify what someone actually says, as opposed to simple statements being made by the writer.” Actually, I just made that quote up, but it illustrates one of the primary roles of quotation marks. The other is to denote when something is being lifted from another source.
There’s a third use for quotation marks, and it’s not well-understood. It’s to imply that something isn’t really what you’re presenting it as. For example, if I wrote that a necklace was made from “silver” or “real” silver, I’m implying that it’s actually an imitation. If I said that a particular political candidate is “smart,” I’m suggesting that she’s dumber than that proverbial box of rocks.
Even if your job makes you say something 150 times a day, never lose sight of the fact that it may be the first time your audience is hearing it.
I think about that every time I’m shopping in a store and the cashier or an employee on the PA mumbles “thank you for shopping with us.” They don’t mean it. They don’t even try to pretend that they mean it. It’s something they’ve been told to say, so they say it with no enthusiasm.
I’ll often receive emails asking me about specific rules of word usage. Or when I submit copy to a client, one of the reviewers will send it back with a comment asking whether I know the rule about something.
The grammarians in the crowd will hate me for saying it, but there really aren’t any rules about writing. There are simply preferences that the people who control the writing expect to see.
No, I’m not advocating violence against punctuation. And I’ll admit that the ampersand (that little “&” mark) can be handy now and then. But it’s one of the most-misused tools in the punctuation toolbox.
The ampersand serves as a graphic replacement for the word “and.” When used in graphic design, it can even be a thing of beauty — much prettier than those three letters it replaces. Designers will twist and turn ampersands, run words through and around them, or present them in different colors and typefaces.
Whenever I visit the State Fair or any kind of exposition such as the Flower and Patio Show, I always gravitate to the booths where the people we once knew as hucksters are giving demonstrations. I genuinely enjoy their sales pitches, and they provide some excellent reminders for my professional life.
What does someone selling a set of pots and pans, eyeglass cleaner, or a high-horsepower blender have to offer to a copywriter? Plenty.
One of the first lessons in learned in marketing is one of the easier to understand. It’s one of the most durable, timeless pieces of advice. It’s been promoted experts of all stripes. And yet, it’s one of the most consistently ignored.
When people read your ad, your press release, your email, or your website, what exactly do you want them to do?
Some of you may be hearing Roger Daltrey intone that headline, but my goal isn’t to tap into your brain’s storehouse of long-forgotten lyrics. Instead, I’d like to explore an issue that has long puzzled me: why do companies think that rolling out a new website will excite their audiences and incite them to visit en masse?
I ask that because I’ve so often been asked to develop ads and other materials that essentially proclaim, “We have a new website!” So? What’s the big deal?
If you use an electronic sign, always check the number of characters it can display at any one time. One local business called “Glass Pros” uses its sign to make promotional messages, some of which end with the company’s name. Unfortunately, it appears that the screen can only display eight letters and/or spaces at a time, so when a message stops scrolling, only the last eight letters and/or spaces remain visible. Take a look at their name, do a little counting, and you’ll see how their sign presents them.
How do you convince consumers that hot dogs are healthy food? Coney Island hot dog entrepreneur Nathan Handwerker did it with stethoscopes, says writer Bob Bly in his book “All American Frank: A History of the Hot Dog” (http://www.bly.com/AllAmericanFrank).
Handwerker’s price of a nickel per dog couldn’t overcome public worries about the quality of the meat. There was a perception that processors used tainted beef.