Posts Tagged ‘group.’

Does a suite suit you?

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

I was happily reading a blog post nicely laid out with tables and sub-headings when I came across a sentence “change your pricing strategy to suite your business needs.”
I’ll say no more other than to give a new pair of misused words…

suit: (verb) to be acceptable to or enhance something
Will it suit you to meet at 10am on Wednesday?
Does your pricing strategy suit your business needs? 

suit: (noun) a set of clothing, generally consisting of a jacket with pants or skirt; legal action; one of fur divisions in a pack of cards club, diamond, spade, heart); a romantic interest.
Most men wear a suit to a funeral.
Jason was very pleased when he won the law suit against his competitor.
Rachel’s hand of cards included every suit.
After three years, Elizabeth accepted his suit. 

suite: related things together as a set, such as a group of rooms in a hotel or a set of furniture for one room; music in one key but several parts
Jane ordered a new bedroom suite at the sales.

Writing for the group

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

While individuals may be insoluble puzzles, in the aggregate they become mathematical certainties.
Sherlock Holmes

When writing to sell your business to people, you can’t be sure how any one individual will react to your words. However, you can write so that the majority of your audience (and by audience I mean people who are possibly going to buy from you, rather than the entire global population) will react the way you want them to.

This means it is important to remember that one negative response is not the end of your business, and may not be representative of everyone’s reaction. It also means that you need to use words and expressions that many people will understand, not just ones that a few people will relate to.

Writing for a group will bring better results than writing for one or two individuals – although writing as if to individuals is still effective and personal.