Performance Communications | April 11, 2014
People who know me or work alongside me know that I’m always a stickler when it comes to the use of the English language.
Frankly, I don’t see or hear proper grammar being used nearly enough these days and, dear readers, it depresses me enormously.
Which is why it was pleasing to see a story in the Guardian about a schoolboy who forced Tesco to change its orange juice packaging after spotting that the term “most tastiest” was a heinous grammatical faux pas.
It’s not common place these days to find anyone who cares enough about proper English to kick up a fuss, let alone a young person. With the advent of street slang and text language, grammar is surely the least ‘cool’ thing to be interested in.
[quote align=”right” color=”#999999″]We now have to think about SEO when we write and explain complex concepts in 140 characters[/quote]
But it got me thinking about how we communicate. It’s changed enormously, even in the last decade. We now have to think about SEO-heavy copy when we write and explain sometimes complex concepts in the compressed space of 140 characters.
It’s not an easy balance to strike, especially as online and offline merge to form a new comms landscape. Everyone wants more traffic to their website but, to get that, you need Google to send traffic and, to achieve that, you need to use SEO-friendly language in order to hit the search terms people are using. Once you’ve finished thinking about that, your crafted piece of writing may no longer be as instantly digestible as you’d ideally like. It’s the ultimate PR Catch 22.
At the same time, tolerance levels for jargon or nonsensical marketing speak continue to nose-dive among editorial staff – no matter how high-brow the journalist nor how complicated the story, it’s still better to tell it like you would your mate down the pub.
[quote align=”left” color=”#999999″]I am filled with outrageousty[/quote]
Then, my wife sent me this link, which I adored. These are words that remain in the Oxford English Dictionary but which have, for various reasons, become defunct. All using the suffix –ty to create abstract nouns out of adjectives, some of them haven’t been used since as far back as the 14th Century. And yet the mechanics of the English language are such that, if you said to someone “in all seriosity” or “I am filled with outrageousty”, they might look at you funny, but they’d likely know exactly what you mean.
And that, I suppose, is the general tenet. As long as you can converse in terms that your audience will readily understand – be that through the medium of the latest, bang tidy yoof speak, or ancient, flowery terms that happen to adhere to the rules of language – you will succeed in the business of communications.
Tailor the way you speak to people and the language that you use, by all means. Twitter houses the best recent examples of this, such as this from Argos.
That’s an extreme case, of course, but the communications industry must always strive to adapt to our constantly shifting language if effective, impactful conversations are to continue.
I’m drawing the line at emoticons, though. Winky smiley face.
