Word Wise

Phone Lex

2009-10-28T12:32:38-05:00

When it comes to telephones, a lot has changed since the days of “one-ringy-dingy, two-ringy-dingy." It used to be that we had a phone – okay, some of us had a princess phone – a phone number and that was that. Today? Well, you know. Not only are we talking on our phones constantly, we’re also talking about our phones, referencing phone numbers from New York to New Delhi, and encouraging people to call toll-free numbers, among many other phone-related things. As new technologies have been introduced, so, too, have the ways in which we refer to them in our writing.

Cell phone is two words. And cell has two Ls.
It would be fun if more than one BlackBerry could properly be BlackBerries, but it’s not. It’s BlackBerrys.
While it’s iPhone, it’s IPhone if it starts a sentence.
Hot line is two words, too.
Smartphone is one word and lowercase unless it starts a sentence as it does here.
The initialism for Voice over Internet Protocol is VoIP, styled just like that.
Bluetooth is a proper noun and always capitalized.
Toll free is two words, hyphenated when used as a modifier (a toll-free number, but you can dial toll free).
While we’re on the subject of toll-free numbers, you should not add a 1 before the number, as in 1-800-555-1212, since, as the Washington Post’s copy desk chief Bill Walsh wrote in his masterpiece, Lapsing Into a Comma, “there’s no need to … belabor the fact that everybody, and not just most people, has to add a 1 at the beginning.”
In the United States, we use hyphens in phone numbers – call me at 312-222-3333 – and not periods, no matter how soigné you think it may look.
SMS stands for short message service but no one knows that so it’s better to just write SMS or “text message.”
When referencing phone numbers for a global audience, from the United States include 011, which indicates a number outside North America; a country code; in some cases a regional, city or area code; and, finally, the local phone number itself. A list of country codes can be found here. But even better, at this site you choose the country from which the call is originating, the country it’s going to, and in return you get the exact numbers you need to use to precede the local number. For instance, if I want to call a colleague in my company’s office in Paris, France, I’d choose the U.S. and Paris, and it tells me I need to write 011 33 1 and then the local number. Voila!

Strategy Shmategy

2009-10-19T17:23:14-05:00

I don’t often strategically write a post about one word, but I’m thinking strategically today and, strategically speaking, the supposedly strategic use of the word "strategic" is not strategically helpful. The word means “relating to or concerned with a plan of action.” So to sound strategically intelligent, everyone in PR these days seems to think that strategically it’s a good strategy to call everything they do – every decision, every phone call, every everything – strategic, lest they be accused of acting willy-nilly. But like the tired-as-all-get-out “integrated” and “seamless,” the word “strategic” has lost its oomph. It no longer implies, strategically or otherwise, that whatever is being done is being done on purpose and with an objective in mind. It no longer has the force of its intended meaning. So inured are we to its presence that our eyes gloss over it without even taking it in. Instead, the word just sits there on a page forlornly, taking up space. Through nonstrategic overuse, misuse, and abuse, a perfectly good and powerful word is no longer powerful. We have forgotten to strategize.

Today's read & other stuff - The Hammer Comes to Glamour

2009-10-19T16:50:15-05:00

According to Gawker.com, life got a little less glamourous today as Conde Nast, fresh from shutting down Gourmet, gave the heave-ho to a half dozen folks at Glamour, all on its sales force. Still, that can't be a good omen for the glamourpusses on the editorial side. One of those let go today was a guy who was on "The Real World: New Orleans." Reality bites.

Probably not following Glamour's lead, The New York Times today announced it's going to cut 8 percent of its newsroom staff - 100 people - by the end of the year. According to the Times itself, the paper "will mail buyout packages to the entire newsroom staff on Thursday. The employees have 45 days to decide whether to apply for the buyout. Under the Newspaper Guild contract that covers most newsroom employees, buyouts generally offer three weeks’ salary for each year of service."

Finally, New York Magazine does a brilliant job of explaining how a news story changes and expands as it moves through people and institutions and other news sources by choosing a random date (Sept. 21) and showing how its top stories - including one about John Edwards' love child, General McChrystal's leaked report on Afghanistan, and the murder of a Yale student - got to actually be that day's top stories. Click here and here for PDFs of the really cool illustrations.

Today's read & other stuff - Shame, Shame, Shame

2009-10-16T12:36:43-05:00

It's a shame: Gawker has a sad little item about an event at which top chefs (not "Top Chefs") are to honor "the editors, writers and staff of the legendary culinary publication Gourmet magazine," except apparently it's hard to locate any of them. (Did anyone check the masthead?) Event planners even posted an ad on Craig's List.

They should be ashamed: French Vogue this month features a model in blackface. "The exoticism of the model is supposed to be the story but it ends up being nothing,” New Yorker magazine writer Hilton Als told the Daily Beast, which reported on this. “It’s not offensive, it’s just the scraping of the bottom of the fashion world barrel to come up with something."

Time Sensitive

2009-10-12T16:29:03-05:00

All sorts of documents we write include the time – when an event starts or stops or a new service begins or a person lands at the airport or arrives at the office or an embargo ends or a march steps off or when that much-anticipated giant inflatable singing flea will be in town. So getting the time right is important. But time and again our timing is off because we’re not describing time accurately.

Often, in the United States, this happens between the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, when in most of the country it’s Daylight Saving Time (note, “saving” isn’t plural). During this period it’s not, say, 2 p.m. CST but 2 p.m. CDT; that is, Central Daylight Time. Each U.S. time zone name changes to reflect circumstances. EST (Eastern Standard Time) becomes EDT (Eastern Daylight Time), etc. It’s a small but important distinction and not one limited to the United States.

Since 1996 Europe (except Iceland), where Winston Churchill once said that the idea of changing clocks provides “the opportunities for the pursuit of health and happiness among the millions of people," has also had a form of this called European Summer Time, which runs from the last Sunday in March through the last Sunday in October. In the Southern hemisphere – where summer starts in December – Daylight Saving Time more or less occurs from late October through late March.

Springing ahead or falling back, however, is not without controversy. The great Canadian writer Robertson Davies said that time change suggested “the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves." (Yes, you read that right, he was complaining about governments encouraging their people to become “healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Now that's a curmudgeon!)Despite Davies, around 70 countries worldwide adhere to “Daylight” or “Summer” time to do just that.

So while it’s true that in casual correspondence CST is okay when you actually mean CDT, and it’s sort of a moot point when scheduling meetings online since most (probably all) systems correct for time changes in meeting requests, given the opportunity it’s always best to err on the side of accuracy and use the correct acronym. After all, time waits for no man (or, for that matter, woman).

Today's read & other stuff - Gourmet Goes; Saveur Grows

2009-10-08T09:02:19-05:00

Today's read & other stuff - Please, Sir, I Want Some More

2009-10-06T06:56:07-05:00

Gourmet: R.I.P.

From Ruth Reichl's Twitter account: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. ... We're all stunned and sad..... Dishes done. All gone. Great gathering at the house tonight. I so love the people I've worked with at Gourmet. Hard to believe it's over."

Slate's take: How Conde Nast Is Like General Motors - The Magazine Empire as Car Wreck

New York Magazine asked a bunch of famousy chefs what they thought about Gourmet's demise. "Gourmet was not the Bible but people read it," noted one of the chefs. "But the world changes. It's big and sad news."

From Time Out New York, a cris de coeur about "where we go from here."

A great slide show about Gourmet at the Daily Beast. I especially like this cover:

Color Coded

2009-10-05T16:17:35-05:00

We know that, say, Maya Angelou is African American, but is she Black or black?

I’ve come across several documents lately, written by colleagues and others, who’ve referred to African Americans (as well as people of African heritage living in other countries outside Africa) as Black. Ditto, I’ve seen people like me – a member of the Caucasoid race – referred to as White or white.

I get the caution – one person told me she thought lowercasing a color when referring to race may connote disrespect – though I'll admit I also roll my eyes at it. Seriously, people, we’re talking about uppercasing and lowercasing letters. Let’s all stay calm.

With all due respect to people everywhere, the answer is that both black and white, when referring to people’s race, are lowercase. This is AP style as well as that of most mainstream media outlets. “Lowercase black and all racial designations derived from skin color (white, brown, yellow, red),” notes The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage.

While we’re on the subject, I’ve also come across several instances of writers referring to black people en masse as African Americans. Go USA and all that. But keep in mind that people of African ancestry live around the world and that not all black people are African American.

When Every Word Counts

2009-09-25T09:28:37-05:00

It took me a little over four uninterrupted hours yesterday to write six sentences – all together 95 words (I was so intent on finishing that I lost track of time and almost missed “Project Runway,” though, really, how boring is this season?). A lot of people, especially those who don’t write often or who self-identify as “bad writers,” think a writing assignment that calls for only a few words is easier than one calling for many, that writing 95 words will take a tenth as long as writing 950 words. Au contraire, mes amis. My journey yesterday reminded me how hard it is to pack in a ton of information using as few words as possible and the need to edit, edit, edit.

No one process exists on how to do this, but here’s how I do it.

First, I more or less write as much as I want, ignoring word count. I just shove in all the information available. This way, when I start to edit, I can judge pieces of information – facts, data, references, opinions, etc. – side by side. I can use my judgment and weigh what’s important as I begin the arduous process of slashing content, rearranging words, and rewriting sentences.

Then I begin the arduous process of slashing content, rearranging words, and rewriting sentences.

If you haven’t been given a lot of direction then it can be hard to know what information is absolutely necessary to retain and what, given the space limitation, you can lose. This is where your smarts and savvy come into play. Oh, and your confidence, since you need to be confident in your decisions. They need to make sense and you need to be able to defend them intelligently when your client asks you where the information about the blah-bi-di-blah-blah-blah is.

I also mow through my copy and delete every adjective and adverb. They’re perfectly (adverb) nice (adjective) parts of speech but when every word counts, most modifiers do not.

In my mind, when I’m writing a short piece that’s intended to pack a wallop, I imagine myself putting words and sentences through a sieve and seeing what shakes out.

Interestingly (to me, at least) is that since I’ve been twittering (at SantowDan), forcing myself to say something compelling in 140 or fewer characters, I’ve also noticed that I’ve gotten more efficient at telegraphing a lot of information using as few words as possible. See, yet another reason to twitter.

Next time I have only 95 or so words to write, I’m hoping I can whittle down the time it takes. After all, “Project Runway” waits for no one. Good-bye, Mood!

Today's read & other stuff - For Immediate Release

2009-08-24T08:07:44-05:00

You may never feel good about writing another press release again after reading this in the Aug. 31 edition of The New Yorker.

Homonym Grits

2009-08-20T15:06:14-05:00

Even though you know the difference in meaning between, say, it’s and its, its not uncommon to type the wrong one (okay, I did that on purpose). Then again, even good writers (and good typists) mix up words that are spelled differently and have different meanings but sound the same – that is, homonyms. I suspect that’s because they’re not really, really, really sure which one is right. Everyone has their particular bugaboo – mine is effect/affect; I am constitutionally incapable of using either without confirming I’m using the right word – and it’s worth noting yours and taking extra care when necessary.

I see these pretty regularly:

ad / add

An ad is short for advertisement (one d in each), while add is related to addition (a double d in each). The ad for chartreuse Christian Louboutin peep-toe pumps made her want to add them to her collection.

aid / aide

Aid is a verb and means to help or assist, while an aide is a helper or assistant. My aide aided in my indictment.

assent / ascent

To assent is to say yes; while to ascent refers to the act of climbing something. Anik assented to the ascent up Sacré Cœur.

born / borne

To be born is to be brought into existence, while borne is the past tense of bear, or to bring about. Right after Blanche was born, she contracted a water-borne illness.

cash / cache

Cash is what I never have enough of, while a cache is a secret store of something. Barney found a cache of $1,000 cash.

cite / sight / site

To cite is to refer to, while a sight is something you see and a site is somewhere you visit. The online site cited the sights of Venice.

counsel / council

To give counsel is to provide advice, while a council is a group of folks in charge. The council of elders counseled me to stop all my damn bellyaching.

discreet / discrete

Something discreet is confidential, while something discrete is distinct from other things. Penelope's discrete office affairs were mercifully discreet.

lesson / lessen

A lesson is something you learn or the time you take learning, while to lessen is to remove or reduce. Cristobel lessened his boorishness with a lesson in manners.

peak / peek / pique

A mountaintop is a peak, a quick look is a peek, and a hurt ego is a pique. Martha had a pique when she took a quick peek at Mt. McKinley’s peak and realized Stewart had beaten her there.

shear / sheer

A shear is a large tool for cutting, while sheer is either very thin and light transmitting or in a complete manner. Mr. Kenneth’s talent with a pair of shears was a sheer delight to see.

The Grateful Head

2009-08-10T08:43:35-05:00

As if compelling, clever headlines aren’t hard enough to write (see above), figuring out how to style them can be just as difficult. Assuming you're not capitalizing every letter in every word, here are the generally accepted rules:

Always capitalize the first and last words
Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, as well as all other words that are four or more letters
Despite their length, or lack thereof, capitalize the following: no, not, nor, off, out, so, up
Capitalize what are known as “subordinating conjunctions”: if, because, as, that, etc.
Capitalize the first word after a colon
Capitalize infinitives like this: to Be, to Do, to Go (it looks funny here, I know, but it doesn’t in headlines)

Under Cover

2009-07-21T21:51:16-05:00

I write and edit a lot of business cover letters – you know, those missives that accompany new business proposals and other documents. And I can be especially tetchy when I read those written by others because it so often seems they wrote it while walking to the mail room to drop off the document – in other words, as if it was an afterthought despite it being the first thing that will be read. Remember what they say about first impressions…

Begin with something interesting to catch your reader’s attention (hey, procurement employees are people, too!). You may be able to start with something about your industry (or theirs), something about your location (or theirs), a comment about an article you read recently that’s relevant to their business, or to an already-established relationship you have with them.
Thanks, but no thanks – avoid starting with a thank you for letting you submit your proposal or document. It is, in one word, obsequious (and just kind of lazy).
Keep it simple – use everyday language and avoid fancy words like “tetchy” (it’s a good word, isn’t it?). Whomever you’re writing may be receiving numerous such letters and the easier you can make it for them the better.
Keep it to one page – I beg of you, if you take away one thing from this tip, it’s that you keep your letter to one page. Recently I edited a two-page letter down to one by deleting the initial thank you, expunging extraneous information, obliterating the bloviating, tightening the language overall, losing a bunch of needless adjectives and, yes, making the font smaller (though not too small). Lots of white space is more appealing than large blocks of dense type.
Use bullets – it’s perfectly acceptable and an easy way to present important points without having to make complete sentences out of them. Plus, if people are merely scanning the letter their eyes are apt to rest on bullet points; if nothing else gets through, at least the information there will.
P.S. Speaking of writing for readers who scan, consider adding a postscript at the end of your letter – again, the eyes will rest there when scanning. Include an extra bit of interesting information about your company, your proposal, or something you learned from research you may have done.
Get your facts right. Sounds obvious, but if you’re reeling off a bunch of info about your company it can be easy to exaggerate or just get them plain wrong. Make sure you don’t say you have 86 offices worldwide when you have 84, for example.
Spell the recipient's name correctly! 'Nuff said.
Include contact information in the letter even if the information is in the attached document. You don’t want your reader to have to hunt for it later if the letter and the document it’s accompanying get separated.
Lastly, PROOFREAD. It’s small things like misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and poor word choice that can really create a memorable – though not positive – impression.

Today's read & other stuff - Finally, Sarah Palin

2009-07-21T16:09:42-05:00

This is totally nonpartisan: The executive literary editor at Vanity Fair magazine edited Sarah Palin's resignation speech based on the rules of grammar, usage, style, accepted norms of good writing, etc. - oh, and the editor corrected facts, a few of which were wrong. (Edits are in red; fact-checking notes in green.) If you're unfamiliar with what it's like to be edited by a really serious copyeditor, definitely take a look. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's pretty fascinating.

Calling Collect

2009-07-13T18:57:47-05:00

Summer back-to-basics tip #9: And so it goes

Just because two adjectives (or modifiers) precede a noun doesn’t mean a comma has to come between them.

Use a comma (in lieu of "and") if you could use the word "and" between two adjectives without changing the sense of the phrase. Michael's big and preppy wardrobe impressed everyone he dated.

So: Michael's big, preppy wardrobe impressed everyone he dated.

But take a look at this sentence: Smith’s messy blond hair gave her a devil-may-care look.

The second adjective – "blond" – is an integral element of the phrase "blond hair" (grammaroholics would call this a noun phrase; I try to stay away from such technical unpleasantries). You wouldn't write that it's Smith's messy and blond hair that gave her a devil-may-care look because it's not both adjectives which, separately, modify "hair" – instead, "messy" modifies "blond hair," so no comma is used.

Summer back-to-basics tip #10: Calling collect

Collective nouns – words that refer to a group of things, such as "total," "majority," "minority," and "number" – can take either singular or plural verbs because sometimes they mean the group as an entity (singular) and sometimes they mean the members of that group (plural).

To figure out which verb form a given word takes, ask yourself whether you’re thinking of the whole (singular) or the parts (plural).

Here’s a hint: "The" before the word (the total, the majority) is usually a clue that it takes a singular verb since "the" implies a single entity, whereas "a" (a total, a majority) usually indicates a plural verb will follow.

The minority is in charge. (The "minority" here is a single group.)
A majority of people are unhappy. (The "majority" here comprises the various members of the group.)