Anything else Archives - Page 9 of 9

EVERY CHICKEN HAS TWO LEGS, TWO BREASTS, AND TWO Cs

December 22, 2010 by Scott Flood

I’m always fascinated by words that are frequently misspelled and expressions that are widely misused. Some may blame the mistakes on shared ignorance, but I think there’s something more insidious at work. I think mistakes are contagious. People who see the words misused lack confidence in their own knowledge and mistakenly believe that what they already know must be wrong.

And why is it that store and restaurant owners invariably ask employees who suffer from that contagion to manage the changeable-letter signs in front of their businesses?

MORE GAFFES AND GOOFS

December 15, 2010 by Scott Flood

It’s time for our semi-irregular look at mistakes in writing or marketing that may be embarrassing to those who made them, but that are darned amusing for the rest of us.

The local police report listed several calls for “wreckless drivers.” Isn’t that a good thing – drivers who have managed to avoid accidents? I suppose that a reckless driver might be a wreckless driver, but only if he or she is very fortunate.

DO YOU CRAVE FAME OR NOTORIETY?

December 1, 2010 by Scott Flood

There are many words that have been misused so often that their meanings have started to blur – and writers who should know better have used the wrong words in the wrong places.

For example, I recently read an article in a national magazine claiming that a particular musician had earned his notoriety by producing a couple albums. “Notoriety” was the wrong word – unless those albums were downright horrible.

SOME PROFIT-BUILDING RASPBERRIES

November 10, 2010 by Scott Flood

Looking for ways to increase your overall sales? Maybe there’s a way to increase the size of each sale you already make. One effective technique is suggestive selling, which fast-food restaurants do exceedingly well. “You want fries with that?” “Would you like a drink with that?” They don’t do it to annoy you; they do it because it works!

But suggestive selling doesn’t have to be annoying. Handled cleverly, it can even tell customers that you really understand and care about them. I remember reading about a fine dining restaurant that dramatically improved its per-customer sales in a simple, yet effective, way.

THE POWERPOINT COMEDIAN

January 12, 2010 by Scott Flood

Most people whose jobs require that they sit through many presentations are well-acquainted with the concept (if not the term) of “death by PowerPoint.” It’s a reference to any number of excruciating presentation types. Perhaps the worst offender is the presenter who subjects you to copy-heavy slide after copy-heavy slide, and makes it worse by assuming that you’re illiterate, so he reads every word to you.

I’M SO SORRY

January 5, 2010 by Scott Flood

When I wrote my recent blog entry, I had no idea that it had the potential to offend someone, and I’m sorry that it did. Clearly, my intent in selecting that topic and writing about it as I did was to inform, not to offend, but I inadvertently managed to do so.

I was a little surprised at the reaction to my innocent slip, but I guess I shouldn’t be. Over time, I’ve learned that nearly everything will offend someone. And I’ve seen that even the slightest perceived offense triggers a response that seems several times larger than the offense. Often, the source of the offense really doesn’t even exist – it was something the reader perceived to be there, and I can’t detect it, no matter how hard I look.

A TIME FOR THANKS

December 31, 2009 by Scott Flood

Another New Year is upon us, and with it comes that annual gaze forward and glance back. I’m an optimist, so I see good things ahead. And even though 2009 will be recorded as a lousy year by most people, I’d rather focus on things that made it a good year.

IS THERE A TRANSLATOR IN THE HOUSE?

December 29, 2009 by Scott Flood

We’ve all sat in our share of frustrating meetings, but I can still remember the meeting that frustrated me the most. It took place in 1987 in a boardroom in Chicago. A group of automotive industry CEOs (you’d recognize most of the company names) was meeting with a pair of representatives from a social services program. I was in the room as the PR person for one of the auto parts manufacturers.

FORTUNATELY, MY RAISINS LACKED WINGS

September 29, 2009 by Scott Flood

(I’ll take a break from advice and counsel today, and tackle something lighter.)

My son attends Purdue University, and he shared his frustration with the massive swarms of gnat-like insects that have descended upon the campus in recent days. The infestation is so great that the Indianapolis Star covered it, describing how the sheer millions of tiny soybean aphids had even disrupted marching band practice.

It reminded me of my own freshmen year in the land of the St. Joe Pumas, about a half-hour north of Purdue. For some reason, Halleck Center, the student union building, had become infested with more houseflies than I’d seen before (or since). I’m not just suggesting that there were a lot of them; it was more in the realm of a Biblical plague. And since we dined in Halleck, it was a cause of some concern.

AL FRANKEN AND RUDY GIULIANI AGREE?

September 3, 2009 by Scott Flood

John Kerry is a smart guy. No question about it. But the reason he’s still a Senator and not a President may have more to do with his choice of words than his political stances. At least that’s what Dr. Frank Luntz suggests, and I’m inclined to agree. Folks as dissimilar as Al Franken and Rudy Giuliani sing the good doctor’s praises.

In “Words That Work” (published by Hyperion and subtitled “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”), the conservative pollster and cable TV news pundit discusses the role word choices have played in everything from political campaigns to labor negotiations to traffic stops. “The most effective language clarifies rather than obscures,” he writes.