I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
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Absolute words
Earlier in the week I wrote a post about products being exclusively available in one department store being a misleading statement (things are either exclusive or they aren’t!) and it reminded me of an article I wrote in my newsletter some time ago (it was my November 2004 newsletter to be precise!)
Here is what I wrote back then:
Don’t over qualify
There are a group of words that have very precise meanings – these words don’t need any qualifying to make them strong, and in fact it is grammatically wrong to attempt qualifying them.
For instance, the word unique means one of a kind so something is either unique or it isn’t – ‘very unique’, ‘particularly unique’, ‘most unique’ and similar combinations are unnecessary.
Other words that are commonly misused in this way are:
Electrocuted – the word actually means to be killed by electricity, not receive an electric shock.
Perfect – means there can be no improvement; adding ‘very’ to it doesn’t serve any purpose.
Fatal – means deadly. An accident is fatal or it isn’t, it can’t be ‘very fatal’ or ‘really fatal’.
In most of these examples, they can be qualified by using a word such as ‘almost’ or ‘nearly’; the word unique, however, can’t be qualified at all.
What other words can you think of that are absolute in their own right?
How not to start an email
I just received some spam which started with:
You are receiving this email becasue we wish you to use our Website Design Services.
Did someone really think that approach was going to win them any business? They went on to explain about their company and what they offer (so say their subheadings anyway – I didn’t read it!) but frankly who cares?
What’s wrong with this opening?
- there is no attempt to be polite or engage me as a human being, let alone being personal
- there is no attempt to gain my interest
- there is no attempt to show any understanding of my issues, let alone suggestions of how they can help solve them
- they didn’t even take enough time to check the spelling in the first line of their email! How can I trust their attention to detail?
- they attempt to further their importance by using capital letters when describing their services – unnecessary capitals of course
- and the big one – how does what they wish have any relevance to me or me receiving unwanted emails?
So when starting emails, remember it is a person reading it so write to them!
Exclusively present at how many places?
I recently saw a sign on the back of a bus that included “available exclusively at no other department stores”.
It left me wondering was it exclusive to the advertiser or not? It was the only department store stocking the product but it could well be available at other places which means it wasn’t exclusive at all!
Let’s look at what exclusive really means…
exclusive: entirely, not shared or including others
The reporter had an exclusive story as the witness spoke only to her.
Exclusive is an absolute term so it can’t be qualified – that is, something is exclusive or it isn’t, there is no middle option. “I’ll give you and the other TV stations an exclusive interview” and “the exclusive club is open to everyone” don’t make sense.
Adverse or averse?
With only one letter different and both words having a negative aspect, adverse and averse are easily conufsed if you aren’t careful.
adverse: not in your best interests, unfavourable
She had an adverse reaction to the new medicine.
averse: strongly against or opposed; turn away
He is averse to opening a new branch in Sydney.
verse: text with metre and rythym, such as in poetry or a section of a song
The second verse is my favourite part of the song.
Fewer uses of less?
Words with similar meanings can easily be used in the wrong context, which does not give a good impression of the writer and also doesn’t help to keep the specific meanings of words. Did you know that ‘fewer’ and ‘less’ are often used in the wrong way?
fewer: not as many items (i.e. relates to things you can count)
There are fewer tasks on my to do list now
less (or less than): not as much of something (i.e. relates to a collective noun)
Antibiotics resulted in less disease after WWII.
ANZAC remembrance
Yesterday was Anzac Day so I thought of how often I have seen remembrance misspelt. It is an important word that is part of common speech even though most of us don’t use it very often aside from near Anzac and Remembrance Days.
The other ‘word’ to be aware of is Anzac…
Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps so we would generally write it as the acronym ANZAC; however, we only capitalise the first letter as specified in The Protection of the Word “Anzac” Regulations (administered by the Minister for Veteran’s Affairs).
What phase fazes you?
Here is an interesting pair of similar sounding words – I haven’t often seen faze written (and never misused) but perhaps that is because not many people know how to spell or use it?
faze: to worry or scare
The weather predictions didn’t appear to faze anyone at the campsite.
phase: a specific time or stage in a sequence
He is in the drafting phase of the annual report.
Maternity leave…
After today, I am officially on maternity leave!
My baby is due next week so I am having a few days to rest before hand (of course, babies being babies, there may be no rest period but we’ll see what happens!)
While I will be taking maternity leave from writing projects, I will return to blog posts and answering emails in a few weeks.
If you comment on the blog or send me any other messages, please be patient and I will respond as soon as I can.
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