Archive for the 'Writing' Category


Incisive hat-tip

Published
by
drew
on 6 November 2008
at 11:47
in Links and Writing
.
0 Comments

I’ve just fallen in love with Erin Kissane at Incisive.nu for doing, on a much more regular basis, that which I never really had time to do over at Grammar Nazi.

I especially love her coining of the word English-ish, which so economically describes most of what we read in business and marketing communications. It sounds like English but it’s just kind of not.

I’m also impressed by her correct use of em dashes. You see, people? It’s so easy to do…

You go to the toilet, I’m trying to edit.

Published
by
drew
on 17 April 2008
at 16:03
in Featured, Idea v. Reality, Work and Writing
.
4 Comments

I’m working on a really big project right now. It’s a bastard. Lots of text, lots of pages, lots of people who need to be sure that a lot of the text on a lot of the pages says what they want it to say. I’m in the middle, trying to make sure it says everything it’s supposed to say in a consistent and uniform tone. I’m trying to bring the body of work together, to make it harmonious and lovely. It’s like I’m growing a tree.

Occasionally, other people need to see parts of the text, to make sure it says the right thing (which I just explained). For the most part, I think it says the right thing. All the facts are pretty much there. Very little of it is actually wrong. Very little of it really needs to be changed.

But people are curious. Put a piece of copy in front of them and they try to change things so it says the right things in the particular way that want the right things to be said. Them, that is, and 25 other people. It’s not wrong, you understand, the bits they try to change. Some words, you can spell different ways. I’ve chosen to spell this word this way and I’ve done it the same way every time I’ve written it. If they spell it the other way, it’s out of place. It becomes more wrong than they thought it was when it wasn’t spelled their way.

If what I’m doing is growing a tree, I want each branch to look the same as the other branches; each leaf to look the same as the other leaves.

If what I’m doing is growing a tree, these people are dogs, who see the tree, sniff around the tree and have the uncontrollable urge to piss on the tree in an attempt to make it their own.

But this does nothing at all for the tree; it just makes the tree smell like piss.

But they don’t mind. They just want to come back to the tree when it has been chopped down, pulped, and had the information I’ve been gathering printed on it, smell it, and say ‘Yep, that’s my piss!’