Won’t somebody think of the children?
You might find me a psychotic grammar she-demon, but I think I’m rather a benevolent soul.
As such, I’d give these chaps the benefit of the doubt. I would. And I tried.
But there are three babies in this picture – 3 babies all equally on-the-go.
Which means… I’ll have to cry instead.
Affect vs. effect – with visual aids
As Grammar Girl fights the good fight, I’d thought I’d join in with some handy visual aids.
‘affect’ vs. ‘effect’, what’s the difference?
Never again have to cross your fingers as you hit send/print/launch – not really knowing whether you’ve used ‘affect’ or ‘effect’ correctly.
General rule?
- affect is the verb
- effect is the noun
But! English being English (that is, requiring of the most tedious classes in all of high school) – there are sneaky exceptions.
Check out KU’s handy printable sheet here – and commit to memory my noble contribution.
Boo hiss, Universal
I went to see Couples [sic] Retreat this weekend. A research project.
I’d hoped to see 4 couples (gorgeous girls curiously married to guys way out of their league) fleeing backwards for 2 hours. Nonstop withdrawal from Place A to Place B. It mattered to me dearly. I needed them to run for their lives in hasty, panicked, flat-out retreat.
$12.95 wasted, nobody did any such thing.
Instead, the characters went on a retreat. Took a couples’ retreat.
And while the packed theatre suffered their long-winded antics and mediocre slapstick – we mutually hated this film for one reason above all others.
Where was the goddamned apostrophe?
Retreat. Noun. Requiring of an apostrophe when someone takes one. When they take possession of it. (REMEMBER THIRD GRADE?)
How did yet another movie poster depart on a print run of hundreds of thousands of copies without anyone noticing?
Agreed – this movie caters to the “Morons, Illiterates and Meatheads” demographic — but smart people get bored on a rainy Vancouver night, too!
Lynne Truss, come back from Africa now, the Western world needs you!
Friends don’t let friends – do any of the below.
Available in Google Labs is a drunk email inhibitor, Mail Goggles, – requiring you to complete math questions before an email will send (during the hours you might have one hand around a bottle and one on your mouse). Clever.
Breathalyzers are fine, but, as a society, we’re in much more trouble than that.
I’d love to see the invention of a basic literacy test before a keyboard will work.
The prototype my brother created:
Thank you Sammy
This needs immediate NASA funding. Otherwise? Our language will be slowly hacked to pieces, sold to the lowest bidder.
A deodorant commercial heard yesterday:
“Leaves less white marks!”
NO! Who put you in charge?
Learn more at Grammar Girl – OR – give up entirely. Million dollar ad campaigns get away with abominable sloppiness – and so can you. Instead, grab a drink and (try to) email someone who doesn’t love you anymore.
You + 1.3 billion Chinese
I thought I’d share a bit from my April newsletter – a 2-birds-1-stone trick that you won’t notice as I race the clock to write something genius.
April newsletter excerpt:
On writing for a Chinese audience
I’m writing to you from Shanghai, my family home of 10 years.
Outside – 18 million Shanghainese are getting on with their days.
Above – the World Financial Centre blocks the sun at 492 metres (1614′)
This is a country on the rise and – increasingly – on the move.
As visa requirements relax and disposable incomes grow, travel markets around the world will continue to welcome greater and greater numbers of Chinese tourists. It’s not news – but it needs your attention.
How can you appear utterly au fait the tastes and requirements of mainland Chinese travellers?
It’s got to start with your marketing.
When communicating to a Chinese audience in English, whether on your website or through direct correspondence, keep the following tips in mind:
Characters
Chinese uses characters, not letters and definitely not ‘symbols’. If you feel the urge to gain some points with an internet translation of a few friendly words – don’t. The room for error is big – and you’ll lose face. Face is a complex state of play tied to never embarrassing yourself or others.
Successful interaction depends on getting face – and keeping it. A sure-fire way to lose it forever? Get a ‘Chinese’ tattoo with a backwards, upside down or otherwise botched character. Westerners parading such things are a source of real mirth here in the Middle Kingdom. Stay away from languages you don’t know!
Red letters
Avoid using red font to write names. This indicates that harm will come to the person – death, specifically.
The number 4
In Mandarin, 4 sounds like the word for death. It’s very unlucky – much more so than the western notion of ‘13′. Avoid strings of 4s in phone numbers or email addresses.
The number 8
8 is great! Phone numbers with lots of 8s are very favourable.
Formality
Continue to address your contact by their title and last name unless they request otherwise. Polite, formal communication is advised.
Yes means yes and yes means no
Yes – in Chinese – means ‘correct’. If you phrase a question in a negative way and expect a no answer, the Chinese will respond ‘yes’. They mean ‘correct, no.’
Example:
‘You didn’t have any trouble finding us?’
‘Yes’. Meaning no. Switch the yes to ‘correct’ and it makes sense in English.
Youlikee?
Subscribe to my humble newsletter and strap yourself in for May’s bounty.
Want the full article? Just say please.
Illiterate Bingo – Friday Business Board Games
We live in trying times. Though many among us live in trying time’s.
Last week, Matthew was kind enough to point out the BBC’s 50 worst clichés, a website which features this brilliant tool.
If you don’t work in a corporate office environment but still want to play, hang around an airport lounge, a hotel lobby or a downtown Starbucks. They’ll find you.
Business jargon is like a bad infomercial: so bad it’s good. Our much graver concern, the real axis of evil, is awful, lazy English:
- apostrophe crimes
- lobotomised word choice
- hyphenation abominations
Where my Tapestries of Travesties do all they can to name and shame, I urge you to take to your trenches with a little coping mechanism.
Illiterate Bingo
Keep this sucker on your desktop and, when you score bingo, send back screenshots of your victories (or what little solace we can find in such butchery).
You can fill in the middle slot with the slice of bad language that makes you bleed the most. I’ve already found mine and it’s a bloody zinger. We’re talking triple-threat stuff.
A few rules?
- No picking on non-native English speakers. 99 times out of 100 it’s the native speakers doing the visible damage – those who painstakingly learn English grammar would never dash their hard work with such carelessness.
- No trifling typos. While – knock on wood – I’ve never published a typo that I know of, we’re all mortals and make no promises otherwise. It’s the sloppy folks ruining the internet that I’m after. They’re habitual felons and I implore you to make citizens’ arrests as and when their sorry trail of destruction appears.
Nervous?
Are people going to score points on your blog or website?
Seek help now. 12-step programme: stop killing the apostrophe.
Go forth and take back what we hold sacred!
12-step programme: stop killing the apostrophe
Look carefully. Here we have two innocent little babies, curled helplessly in foetal position. Handle them carefully, or you might drop them. You’ll hurt them if you do. You’ll lose credibility, no one will trust you again – and the clean up’s messy. So we’ll avoid killing the apostrophe, yes?
Here’s the path to recovery, in 12 easy steps.
1. Admit you have a problem – It’s ok, you’re in the safety of your anonymous interwebbed life. I won’t know. Just admit to yourself, out loud:
My name is X and I don’t know how to use an apostrophe. I force them into plural words where they don’t want to go. Yes, that’s me, I commit these crimes because I don’t know any better. I want help.
2. Realise you need help from others – Yes, yes you do! Find it here, here, here, there, over here, try this and how about this.
3. For the greater good of mankind, decide to take action – It will not only restore your sanity – but mine too. Oh thank heaven.
4. Assess the impact your apostrophe crimes have had – Lost credibility, rolled eyes, dejected sighs from potential customers as they click elsewhere and run for dear life.
5. You accept responsibility – For these past mistakes you have no one to blame but yourself (and perhaps lousy English teachers and too much TV).
6. You focus on the future – The properly punctuated future and look forward to the positive changes you can make.
7. You actively commit to making whatever changes are necessary – Hurray! You’ll need some help and (surprise!) I’m only too happy to provide it. Print this little chart and tape it to your monitor. Hum the rules softly in your sleep.
8. You make amends – For past crimes you will shoulder the burden of teaching others that “other’s” is not how to make the word plural. You will call others on their mistakes and only settle for what is right.
9. Forgive those who wronged you – However you came by this awful addiction to dead wrong apostrophe usage, you forgive your teachers for their miserable shortcomings.
10. Reflect on the past – Consider the sentences wasted and sentiment lost, your kingdom for a retarding force.
11. No excuses – You must remain vigilant to the creeping habit of apostrophe butchering. Keep your handy reference chart with you no matter what.
12. Inner peace – It’s yours for the simple commitment to using our apostrophe baby right.
And now, let us take a moment to remember those apostrophes used in ignorance in just the last week alone. Please take some time to reflect upon my Tapestry of Travesty. May their deaths not be in vain.
Plenty more where this came from – subscribe to my feed now!
Related post: So verb’s need apostrophe’s too?
Why I should write your Christmas letter
This year, I’m going to trump even Hallmark in premature Christmas discussion. I realise it’s March, but I want to set this offer out in plenty of time: I want to write your family’s holiday letter.
Chrysty Fortner recently asked to be told if her baby was ugly. (So would I, for the record). I’d also want to know if my Christmas letter sucked.
They’re dangerous things. Filled with land mines you won’t notice until it’s too late. Unless the letter’s completely charming, or entirely sardonic, your friends might start to hate you.
To prove the necessity of this service, I stole 3 examples from my parents’ mail last year and copied them verbatim below.
Example A – The Deluded Brag-fest
“[Grown child] graduated from Brown last summer and is moving to England to take up a teaching position at a prestigious preparatory academy. We’re thrilled for her to represent her family, Brown and her country in the United Kingdom.”
Example B – The Whinge, with Supplemental Details
“In May I spent 2 weeks in Cyprus with my friend [Person You Don’t Know] and we had a good time. I was a little disappointed in the hotel. We had been promised a Greek lesson, Greek dancing and an exhibition of Greek cookery. When nothing turned up we enquired and were told there was no interest!
[Person You Don’t Know] wasn’t at all well so we were backward and forward to the hospital. She is on a strict diet (she is terribly overweight) and we just hope she will stick to it this time. Unfortunately she usually gives up.”
Example C – The Isn’t-My-Life-So-Much-Better-Than-Yours + Constant Name Drop
“We spent from January to April in Santa Barbara. Had a great time socially including lots of golf, tennis and boating. Then went over to Colorado for a week with [People You Don’t Know] and enjoyed a week’s skiing. We both then went over to Washington to stay with [People You Don’t Know] and visit with [People You Don’t Know] and their kids. After Seattle we drove down to Portland and caught up with [People You Don’t Know].
Once back in the UK at the end of May with [People You Don’t Know] we headed off for Norway to visit with [Man You Don’t Know] in one of his cabin’s [sic] by his fiord.
We had a lovely long weekend in the famous Portuguese city of Porto in Sept. With [People You Don’t Know] to celebrate [Person You Don’t Know]’s 50th birthday.
Soon we will be going to celebrate [People You Don’t Know]’s 30th wedding anniversary at an old farmhouse – should be great fun with a murder mystery dinner and other many other activities!”
Mirth or suppressed rage? Can’t decide.
Are Christmas letters really their own awful breed or do we judge them more harshly because we know the hoodwinking authors? Regardless, they’re each their own failed case study: how to desecrate copywriting rules.
1. Appeal to your audience…or you’ll lose them
No points awarded in this round. We’ve had mail merge capability for decades – there’s no excuse to write a batch letter to your entire address book. Witness example C – a slew of who-dats?
2. Don’t brag
You won’t get away with it. Remember – it’s not about you. It’s got to be all about the reader, all the time. The acceptable limit is to brag about one thing. ONE THING. The thing at which you’re absolutely, positively the best. [Grown child graduated from Brown!] Yay! We can be happy about that. Don’t continue with the resumé, we’ll get bored. And we’ll hate you.
3. Don’t give us too much information!
Woahh! Didn’t need to know about your fat friend!
We’re in a narcissistic age. Cultivating adoration is fine on Crackbook or Twitbook (in fact, I think it’s the point). In the real world, you can’t afford for it to be about you. People – whether readers or customers – won’t stick around. As for your friends? If they don’t want to read your awful Christmas letter – who will?
Screw you, College Board
In the U.S. school system, high school kids rely on strong SAT scores for university acceptance. Until recently, this meant 800 points for math and 800 for verbal skills.
It was a strange system. A student could receive top marks in one category, fail the other and the lopsided genius would end up at the local community college.
It all makes sense now. They were trying to tell us, “You need both math and verbal skills to survive in the real world!” Wonky brains won’t work if you need to switch sides and tip the pizza boy or write a birthday card. So, College Board, I finally concede that I do need mathematics to finesse daily life.
But my math skills only take me so far (usually to the door, with the pizza). We creative types know to hire an accountant or financial help when needs soar beyond our algebraic reach. The converse does not seem to hold true for the math-brained world.
My exhibits A, B and C
This email
The 2 HSBC bank managers (two!) who asked me how to spell Shanghai.
“What does HSBC stand for?!?” I asked, incredulous.
“Why, the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank!” They answered by rote.
“Uh huh….”.
*Blank stare*
“S-H-A-N-G….”
And OnlineMarketer, who will only trust his money to a bank that can handle high school English.
Final score: math geeks 0, cool kids 3
College Board, could you please do some follow up? It seems your left-brained champions need a refresher in their verbal aptitude.
Yea, yea, yea… in 2005 you added a writing section. Too little, too late! Your negligence means there are generations of untested, unashamed illiterates out there.
I think the math crew needs to retire their spell check and give one of us a call.
Related post:
12-step programme: stop killing the apostrophe