By Francis Moran
The Chicago Manual of Style, that is. And, believe it or not, it’s often quite the humorous journey.
Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that we take considerable pride in being word nerds, and that strong, effective and precise writing is the hallmark of our work here at inmedia. But even the best and most practised of us needs to refer to an unimpeachable expert every now and then. We make heavy use of dictionairies — my Pocket Oxford Dictionary has been my desk-side companion through four decades, and its missing spine and dog-eared appearance is testimony to my continued reliance on it — as well as style guides such as CP Style Book, and all the online tools we can get our cursors to.
The best of these is the Chicago Manual of Style, or simply Chicago, as its devotees call it. We regularly go to Chicago, if you will, to check the finer points of grammar and punctuation and settle the very occasional difference of opinion that might crop up here between writer and editor.
As subscribers to the online edition of this style guide, we get monthly emails listing questions that have been put to its editors by readers. They reply with a certainty and conviction that is reassuring, while maintaining a cheeky sense of humour; many of their answers are good for a chuckle.
Take this recent exchange, for example:
Q. The assistant editor of my local newspaper wrote the following sentence in a column: “My parents had my little brother and I later in life.” I said I believe it should be “my brother and me.” She remains adamant that she is correct and referred me to your book. How is this possible?
A. It’s not possible; she’s flat-out wrong. (And we rarely say that anything is flat-out wrong.) Ask her if she would write “My parents had I.”
Or these two that had the word nerd in me chuckling:
Q. I’m going to have signs made for the tennis courts at my rather academic club. I want one of them to say something like this:
Tennis Players:
1. Please sign in at front desk.
2. Groom your court after play.
Thank you.
I have lots of questions! Is it fine in an application like this to omit articles to save space? How should I capitalize and punctuate? Is it awkward to have a list like that? I wanted to make it absolutely clear to the reader that he has TWO duties (that is, I don’t want him to stop reading one long sentence and not register his second duty).
A. It’s easy to answer when the writer already has everything down just fine. It’s all fine—really! Sticklers might think that having “your” would mean you have to have “the” to be parallel, but I would argue that “your” isn’t optional and that adding “the” on a sign like this isn’t necessary or even conventional. Maybe you could have another sign pointing that out, just in case.
And:
Q. In a technical proposal, would you say “400-ton-per-day scrubber” or “400-tons-per-day scrubber”? Thanks a bunch!
A. The first construction is the more usual one. (Btw, what is a 400-ton-per-day scrubber, exactly? And where can I get one?)
Who says grammar can’t be fun?
By Leo Valiquette
There’s been no shortage of commentary here and elsewhere about the value of brevity when it comes to engaging with the media. As PR practitioners, we’re often making cold contact with harried folks overwhelmed by numerous pitches that all claim to be inherently more worthy than whatever else is clogging up the inbox.
By the same token, readers must be equally busy, with equally short attention spans, so it only makes sense that written material intended for their consumption must also be short, sweet and to the point, right?
Well, not necessarily.
There is a clear difference between copy that is reader friendly and copy that isn’t. And mere length is a poor means of distinguishing one from the other. On the fiction front, I’ve torn through tomes 400 and 500 pages long in an afternoon, and struggled for days through artful prose only half that length. The style in which something is written is as important, if not more so, than length, when it comes to engaging the reader.
So what defines reader-friendly copy from that which isn’t? It’s an important question for us, as we produce for clients news releases, backgrounders, case studies and other materials that must be both informative and engaging for the media and the media’s audience.
Daily Writing Tips offers up some good pointers and refers to a fellow who has had significant influence on the business of writing, Rudolph Flesch, the man who developed the Flesch–Kincaid Readability Tests for assigning appropriate grade levels to reading material.
From our perspective, spinning a good yarn is what’s important to engaging the reader and how long that yarn will be is determined wholly by the quality of the material. The key thing is to ensure the piece has a tight focus with an obvious beginning, middle and end, written in a clear active voice. Long-winded sentences and complex vocabulary should be kept to a minimum. Lots of periods and white space are good things.
One of my profs from J-school summed it up best. When asked how long a story assignment should be, she would always answer, “Give it what it’s worth.”
By Francis Moran
Although no inmedianauts were stranded yesterday when Ottawa-based Zoom Airlines suspended operations as it sought bankruptcy protection in the face of actions by several of its leaseholders and creditors, we very easily could have been. Ever since our Danny Sullivan repatriated himself to his native Scotland and set up office for us in Glasgow a few years back, we have been enthusiastic and regular passengers on this quirky little airline that offered good prices, excellent service and a peculiar schedule that gave us direct, non-stop flights for most of the year between Ottawa and Glasgow. It’s as though Zoom was made for us.
Our best experience happened when we flew Danny on Zoom to Ottawa on fairly short notice when a long-time client hired a new marketing vice president and wanted to talk about an aggressive new program. The veep, who had flown in from San Jose, did not believe that Danny had come to town just for that meeting. Turned out, however, that it cost less and took less time for Danny to get there than it did for the veep!
Zoom was a favoured carrier for my family, too. In the winter, Zoom used to offer non-stop weekend service between Ottawa and St. Maarten that could see a winter-weary citizen of this frozen northern capital get on a plane at about 6:30 a.m. and be frolicking in the warm Caribbean by noon. And three summers ago, we flew Zoom to Scotland for a family vacation in England, Scotland and Ireland.
From a PR and crisis communications perspective, though, Zoom does not seem to be managing this potentially fatal setback nearly as well as it managed its early growth and success. News stories have focused on the suddeness of the shut down, the lack of communication to stranded passengers and the apparent abandoning of their posts by Zoom personnel at airports. This does not create the kind of forgiveness and understanding a company needs to successfully emerge from such a crisis. And that would be too bad for Zoom and those of us who enjoyed flying with them.
By Leo Valiquette
One battle-ready sword with really, really blunt edges (hey, common sense still has to prevail): $120
One chain mail hauberk and coif (that’s a shirt and hood for the uninitiated): $300
One shield: $150
Getting some adrenaline-pumping exercise that reminds us of the time when a man’s sword had to be as sharp as his wit: Priceless
As a wordsmith by profession and preference, there is nonetheless only so much time I can spend in front of a computer weaving words into artful prose. I need to take a break and try my hand at something else for awhile, usually something that involves sweat and sore muscles. Everything in moderation, after all.
For the past several years, its been one home improvement project or another. This time around, I am finally pursuing a long-held intention to take a course with the disarming title of “Chivalrous Sword Handling,” which will inevitably lead to a greater investment in arms and armor for regular engagements sparring with actual steel weapons (With all practical considerations made for safety, of course).
Whatever your particular bent, there is no underestimating the value of regular physical activity to burn off stress and the calories accumulated from sitting at a desk all day. I’ve known more than one workaholic, with a tummy only Timmy’s could make, hit with a heart attack or similar lifestyle-related illness at far too young an age.
So a note of caution as we say goodbye to August and head into September and the flurry of work-related activity that usually goes with it. Don’t let long and busy days at the office lead you to flop for the evening at home. Even a 30-minute walk after supper can work wonders. Even better, add another 10 or 15 minutes over lunch to refocus the mind and shake out the lethargy of sitting at the desk.
It’s a cliche because its true: If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.
-
Great post on Maple Leaf’s crisis communications
August 26, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran I was hoping to find the time today to blog about how Canadian packaged goods company Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has been responding to the outbreak of listeriosis linked to one of its meat-processing plants. In general, I have been impressed by the company’s upfront and forthright approach. However, I really can’t […]
Read more... -
Bloggers: To pitch or not to pitch…
August 25, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran While we here at inmedia have long maintained there is little difference between bloggers and conventional journalists when it comes to pitching, we do appreciate that many bloggers do not care at all to be pitched by us PR types. That’s not usually an issue for us; as an agency specialising in […]
Read more... -
-
Getting a return on analyst briefings
August 25, 2008 by Danny Sullivan
By Danny Sullivan The majority of smaller tech companies approach dealing with technology analysts in much the same way. That is, brief them on key milestones such as new products, major customer wins and so on, and hope to eventually make the breakthrough into one of the industry reports covering your sector. This is still a valid approach to dealing with analysts, […]
Read more... -
Don’t worry, be happy
August 21, 2008 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette “Do what you’re supposed to do to the best of your ability and be content with the results.” Okay, that isn’t a catchy quote from some luminary of historical note. I just made it up. But it is along the same lines of the general theme that Francis espoused the other day with that […]
Read more... -
-
“If you persevere long enough…”
August 20, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran “If you persevere long enough, if you do the right things long enough, good things will happen to you.” This is such a gorgeous quote, I simply couldn’t resist blogging about it even though it has absolutely nothing to do with technology or public relations. This marvelous sentiment came yesterday from Canada’s […]
Read more... -
You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry
August 19, 2008 by Leo Valiquette
By Leo Valiquette I still remember the day on the schoolyard when I picked up a pair of bent twigs to serve as an imaginary pistols and offered one to my classmate for an impromptu game of cops and robbers. “I’m not allowed to do that,” he told me solemnly. “Do what?” “Play with guns.” […]
Read more... -
-
Test your vocabulary, feed the world
August 18, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran Who’d have thunk that my self-professed word nerdiness could come together with my social conscience on a single web site with a terribly addictive premise? Well, in the world of the web, all mash-ups are possible, and the quirky but fascinating site Free Rice manages to marry these seemingly disparate interests of […]
Read more... -
Robert Scoble touches the elephant
August 15, 2008 by Francis Moran
By Francis Moran I originally wrote this post for DangleTech, Canada’s largest community-sponsored website dedicated to the issues surrounding Canada’s technology sector, where I contribute a weekly blog called “In the media: It’s where you need to be.” But my editor here at inmedialog, who’s been itching all week to see a post on this subject, […]
Read more... -
Twitter
Tweets by @FrancisMoranRecent Comments
The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]