Nato’s response? The campaign was, it says, conducted with “unprecedented care and precision”.

Unprecedented? Unprecedented?

Now, I know many people think “unprecedented” is just a fancy word for “a lot of”. But it really doesn’t mean that. What it means is “never done or known before”.

Is that really the message the Nato spokesperson wanted to send, do you think? That until that time they killed 72 civilians in Libya, they’d actually taken a rather cavalier approach to bombing the innocent?

That this was the first time in the history of the organisation they’d put any thought whatsoever into where their bombs might fall?

I doubt it.

Corporate writers are as guilty of using “unprecedented” to mean “lots of”. And for those of us who appreciate the niceties of language it invariably sounds wrong and ridiculous.

So don’t do it. Please.

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To prove the point, we’ve uncovered some jargon-stuffed prose from the 2012 Interim Results of Clinton Cards, which went into administration yesterday. Published in January, it’s a 198-word quote (hint: way too long), purportedly from the mouth of Clinton’s CEO, Darcy Willson-Rymer.

In it, Darcy (who we’d imagined as a rather posh, ditsy ballerina type, but is actually a chubby-cheeked “turnaround” guy) assaults you with a fug of jargon. The whole thing reads very much like a failed bid to bamboozle you into not noticing the company he’s trying to turn around is actually totally screwed.

His prose is packed with references to “customer focus”, “business cycle legacies”, and “journeys of”, and “platforms for”, “change”. Oh, and let’s not forget the overuse of that anaemic adjective so favoured by business types, “significant”.

The result is a mendacious load of corporate drivel that gives the impression Darcy was brought in simply to buy enough time for those in the know to get out before the brown excretory matter had a mid-air collision with the air distribution solution (as Darcy would no doubt phrase it). Next stop the EU, Darcy?

Anyway, for your illumination, we’ve provided a bit-by-bit clear-English translation, which exposes the real meaning behind Darcy’s mealy-mouthed corporate blah. Here goes:

Darcy said:

This has been a challenging period in a difficult retail environment, dominated by weak consumer confidence.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts suggest we prune the redundancies of this sentence and just say:

Nobody’s buying anything from anyone at the moment.

Darcy said:

Margins have also been weaker as a result of the clearance of historic overbuys, obsolete stock and the sale of lower margin gifts.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts suggest that if you don’t know the difference between “historic” and “historical”, you should use “past”. Better still, ditch all those abstract nouns (“margins”, “result”, “clearance”, “overbuys”, “sale”) and let a past tense verb do all the work, as here:

Our profits have also fallen because we’ve had to shift a load of cheap old tat that we’d bought too much of [assume that's what you mean by “clearance of historic overbuys”, yes?].

Darcy said:

Since joining Clintons last year I have embarked on a journey of change, with a single-minded focus on the customer.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts suggest you delete this woo-woo “journey of change” nonsense that no one will buy (oops, just like your products!)

Darcy said:

With the store portfolio undergoing significant restructuring and the management team and the Board strengthened, the business now has the ability to be stronger.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts suggest you save the euphemism “restructuring” for employees and tell it like it is to your investors. We also note your attempt at ornamental repetition (“strengthened”/”stronger”), but this whole thing could be tighter so we suggest:

We’re closing stores and we’ve brought in some people who actually know how to manage.

Darcy said:

However, the legacy of the business cycle means that significant impact will only begin to come through from the end of the second half of the financial year.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts think your investors might see through this attempt to make it sound like something or other will happen sooner than it will, and suggest:

But things aren’t likely to improve until the very end of the financial year.

Darcy said:

The strategic review – which examines the customer experience, the store portfolio, business efficiency, and the digital offering – is on target for completion at the end of April. This is the main platform for change and I am confident that the conclusions from the review will put the business in the best possible position for a turnaround.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts say: Seriously, you’re writing a report? That’s it? That’s what a “turnaround” guy does? OK then, we suggest:

At the end of April, we’re hoping to finish a report about what we’ve been doing to save the business. It should tell me what I need to do to get Clinton out of the hole it’s in.

Darcy said:

The outlook for the second half of the current year is below our previous expectations but the changes we are undertaking to the business will deliver significant benefits in future years.

Doris and Bertie’s writing experts suggest you could say this more concisely and less pompously. How about:

The outlook is even worse than we thought it was. But things should get better at some point in the future.

Clinton Cards and the Gunning Fog Index

To highlight the difference between the two versions, we ran them both through our new favourite plaything, the Gunning Fog Index. This online tool tells you at what age you’d have to have left full-time education to understand a piece of text – and the lower the better.

To understand Darcy’s drivel, you’d need to be 19. To understand Doris and Bertie’s version, you’d need to be just shy of your eighth birthday.

The index also highlights in blue any words over three syllables. As George Orwell said, “Never use a long word when a short one will do”, so you can tell just by looking at each version which is better.

Here’s what Darcy’s mendacious corporate drivel looks like:

And here’s Doris and Bertie’s translation of Darcy’s mendacious corporate drivel:

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The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feeling towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.

What has happened in France makes no difference to British faith and purpose. We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of that high honour.

We shall defend our island and, with the British Empire around us, we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of men. We are sure that in the end all will be well. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

 

And here’s why it works:

1. He gets straight to the point

“The news from France is very bad”: imagine if every corporate writer bearing bad tidings were as upfront as Winston.

In the world of work, more typical is the CEO whose email announcing 1,400 redundancies began with this cheery bit of corpspeak:

Today we are announcing a multiyear programme that will enhance service excellence and innovation, help achieve greater operating efficiencies and position us for accelerated growth.

Lesson: If you’ve got to deliver some bad news, don’t start by warming to your theme – the wait only makes things more painful. Worse still, never try to make out the news is good.

2. He doesn’t flinch from the truth

Winston’s honesty extends to being direct about what lies ahead and the consequences of defeat:

The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

A corporate writer would probably have fudged a scary message like that. It would have come out as:

There is a significant and meaningful risk that we will be adversely impacted by the dynamic competencies of our competitor.

Lesson: If you want to get people on board with your strategy, it pays to be honest.

3. He paints a picture

Take a closer look this part:

If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

It might not be particularly original to use light and dark imagery to contrast the good (“broad sunlit uplands”) with the bad (“the abyss of a new dark age”). But such visual imagery leaves us in no doubt about the consequences of giving in to Hitler.

What’s more, Winston then does something rather ingenious: he turns the visual metaphor on its head. That oxymoronic “lights of perverted science” is pure poetry.

Compare it with this bit of abstract, meh-eliciting biz-babble from the 2010 annual report of a now-defunct company that, ironically, was in the business of selling visual images – Kodak. Like Winston’s speech, it talks about the consequences of failure, but in a much more abstract way.

If we fail to identify and complete successfully transactions that further our strategic objectives, we may be required to expend resources to develop products and technology internally, we may be at a competitive disadvantage or we may be adversely affected by negative market perceptions, any of which may have an adverse effect on our revenue, gross margins and profitability.

Lesson: Be concrete, not abstract. Use metaphors to get your message across.

4. He uses short, simple words

We ran Winston’s speech through an online tool that calculates the Gunning Fog Index, which measures readability. It highlights in blue any letters of three syllables or more. Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s what some abstract, meh-eliciting bit of biz-babble from Kodak looks like:

Incidentally, the tool also gives you a Gunning Fog Index number, which tells you the age at which someone would have had to have left full-time education to understand the text. Winston’s figure is 9.698. The figure for the Kodak text is 26.95.

Lesson: Run your own text through the Gunning Fog Index and replace as many long words as you can. Pitch your writing at the level of the primary school, not the PhD.

5. He makes his verbs do the work

Winston’s prose is peppered with simple but powerful verbs that convey an idea of intense struggle:

Grieve

Fall

Rise

Defend

Fight

Break

Stand up to

Fail

Sink

Brace

Bear

Notice how there’s not a single “drive”, “deliver” ,“achieve” or other overused, overly abstract verb from the corporate word hoard.

Lesson: Break out of the corporate language rut and ditch dead verbs.

Listen to the speech here.

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Want to give your reader the most knowledge, while taking away the least time? Then ask yourself these five questions before you even put finger to keyboard.

1. Who is my reader?

Clients. Employees. Investors. They all have different needs and levels of knowledge, so you need to know exactly who you’re talking to before you even put finger to keyboard.

Writing for different types of reader? Maybe you need to create different versions of your piece for each audience.

2. Who is not my reader?

The biggest mistake we see non-expert business writers make is this: writing for one of the two readers who really don’t matter. These two readers are:

a) You.

b) The person who briefed you – usually known in the corporate jargon as The Stakeholder. Because this figure is often seen as part client, part boss, the temptation can be to please them rather than advise them (which usually means reining them in).

If you really want to spare your reader’s time, learn the difference between what you or your stakeholder want to say and what your reader needs to hear.

That waffly update to employees about what some senior executive has been up to for the past quarter? That email to customers announcing the “exciting” news that the company’s just won an award?

They may make you or your stakeholder feel all warm and fuzzy, but no one else cares. Ditch anything you know in your heart of hearts is of no use to your reader.

So what is useful to your reader? Well, that leads us to the next question.

3. What do I want my reader to do?

If you’re not asking your reader to do something after reading your piece, you can probably spike it.

Everything you write should have what’s known in the trade as a call to action. These are the words that tell your reader what you want them to do.

Examples are: “fill in the employee survey today”, “order now and save 20%” or “here’s our business strategy and here’s what I want you to do about it”.

No call to action? No need to publish.

4. What does my reader need to know in order to do what I want them to do?

Everything you write should be geared toward the call to action – instructions, deadlines, contact details. And that’s all.

Yes, that means ditching the scene-setting intro you’ve put in to warm the reader up. And that opening paragraph beginning “three years ago”, “as you know” or “as I said in my last announcement”.

Such corporate throat-clearing leaves your reader asking “so what?” and binning your work before they’ve got to the important bit – the call to action.

So if you really must provide context – an explanation of why you’re asking your reader to take action, for example – put this information after you’ve told them what you want them to do.

Remember, nobody has to read your stuff. The less essential the information, the further down you should put it.

5. What if we don’t publish?

This last question is particularly powerful.

If you or your stakeholder can’t articulate a good business case for publishing (or for including six paragraphs on how you’re “delivering transformational change across the business – blah, blah, blah”), then press that delete key.

2. Be concrete, not abstract. Call a hose a hose, not a fluid transfer solution.

3. “However”: if in doubt, punctuate with full stop, cap, comma. However, there are exceptions.

4. Capitalising job titles? One writer I know was taught to save caps for “God, the Queen and the Editor”.

5. It may look odd, but there’s only one apostrophe in the phrase “Dos and Don’ts”.

6. “While” sounds less pretentious than “whilst”.

7. You don’t need a hyphen with adverbs ending in “ly”: a “happily married couple”.

8. Ditch the corporate throat clearing: go back and see if you can cut your first paragraph.

9. “The data are” or “the data is”? Just choose whatever you think your reader would prefer.

10. Yes, you can split an infinitive. Trust your ears, not rules invented by 18th-century grammarians.

11. Both “under” and “way” are in the dictionary. “Underway”, however, is not.

12. “Don’t” is friendlier than “do not”, though non-native speakers may prefer it spelt out.

13. Remember: “e.g.” = “for example”; “i.e.” = “that is”. They aren’t interchangeable.

14. Don’t overuse “scare quotes” – they make you look like you lack “conviction”. See?

15. The past tense of “lead” is “led”, not “lead”.

16. To quote Hemmingway, “every first draft is s**t”. Always go back and edit.

17. Be active, not passive: “we will send you the document”, not “the document will be sent to you

18. Watch out: “loose” rhymes with “goose”, “lose” rhymes with “choose”.

19. As Mervin Block says, if it’s not necessary to leave a word in, it’s necessary to leave it out.

20. Remember the three “Cs” of great business writing: it’s clear, concise and conversational.

21. Use “comprises of” to sound like an illiterate estate agent. Otherwise, just “comprises”.

22. Never use the jargon “revert” for “reply” – especially if you work with non-native speakers.

23. If your wife compares you “to” George Clooney, be flattered. If she compares you “with” him, be worried.

24. Hyphens aren’t optional. Consider the difference between “extra-marital sex” and “extra marital sex”.

25. Look! No apostrophe: 1980s, 1990s, 2000s etc.

100 more quick writing tips

Today, three quick tips for ensuring your next press release bombs, inspired by this pointless piece of prose:

“The new brand is a result of our collaborative work with stakeholders, members and customers. We listened to their feedback about a desire to work with a more modern and global organization, while still maintaining our rich history and an emphasis on sustainability,” said Ash Sahi, President & CEO, CSA Group. “The singular, more streamlined brand identity will help as the organization extends its global service offerings and solutions to our customers and members while building on our specialized technical expertise, reputation, trustworthiness and rich heritage.”

And here are those tips:

1. Announce something of absolutely no interest to any living journalist
A good topic for your totally pointless press release? Your redesigned logo, a subject containing such minimal news mileage that it definitely warrants 370 words’ worth of your corporate affairs manager’s time.

Caveat: if your new logo is likely to be greeted by universal opprobrium, tell your corporate affairs manager to expect to be fielding calls all day.

After all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, is there? Hmm. Tell that to the hapless designer who’s not worked since committing the heinous crime of adding a little blue square to the word “Gap” for a brief moment in 2010.

Not to mention the creative minds responsible for the wincingly awful attempt to be down with the kidz that is the London 2012 logo (yes, all I see is Lisa Simpson doing THAT, too).

2. Pepper your totally pointless press release with biz babble
Start by including anything that’s appeared on Good Copy Bad Copy’s various lists of words that should be banned, such as:

Stakeholders (No. 41)
Sustainability (No. 4)
Solutions (so awful it warranted a post of its own)
Offerings (No. 3)

We’re particularly pleased to note that since we wrote about it, offering is going the way of learning and is increasingly being pluralised.

Which only adds to our feeling that this is a word most often paired with the adjectives meagre and burnt.

3. Write a quote for your CEO that sounds so obviously made up people will wonder if he’s actually a robot
And remember: the best way to compensate for your total lack of ear for the rhythms of normal, human speech is to write a quote so ridiculously long it would eat up about six column inches of space in your chosen publication. That’ll persuade them to run it.

Read the rest of the totally pointless press release from which the above quote was culled.

Yep, you’ve been punctuating it wrong all these years. We know because we see this mistake all the time. In fact, it’s probably the most common error we see.

Here’s an example of how not to punctuate when using however:

There’s usually no need to book, however please let us know in advance if you’re coming as part of a large group.

This sentence has what’s known in the grammar trade as a comma splice. And the comma splice is up there with the grocer’s (grocers’?) apostrophe as the grammar crime most likely to elicit tuts of derision from the punctuation-conscious reader.

To avoid being branded a comma splice criminal, you have three options.

1. Create two sentences
Your best option for punctuating the above sentence would be to break it into two sentences, using a full stop, a capital letter and then a comma:

There’s usually no need to book. However, please let us know in advance if you’re coming as part of a large group.

Remember: Full stop. Cap. Comma.

2. Use but

You could also use but instead of however, with or without a preceding comma:

There’s usually no need to book, but please let us know in advance if you’re coming as part of a large group.

There’s usually no need to book but please let us know in advance if you’re coming as part of a large group.

Ah, but didn’t someone once tell you to always use however instead of but because but is too negative?

Poppycock! Is this use of but negative?

I didn’t think I’d enjoy the play but it was brilliant!

And does the however in this example make the blow any less crushing?

We read your CV with great interest. However, we regret your application was unsuccessful.

The only thing more soul-destroying than this would be to receive a letter saying We read your CV with great interest, however we regret your application was unsuccessful. That sends the message: yes, we’re illiterate, however we still don’t want you!

3. Use a semicolon

You could, of course, use a semicolon instead of a comma:

There’s usually no need to book; however, please let us know in advance if you’re coming as part of a large group.

But who wants to see a semicolon in business writing? Not this writer, for sure. They’re just a way to turn two short, punchy sentences into one longer, stuffier one.

Besides, chances are, if you haven’t got your head around comma splices, your grasp of colons and semicolons is likely to be wobbly too.

4. Reorder the sentence

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule that you should never put a comma before however. For example, if you give your however a different position in the sentence:

There’s usually no need to book. Please let us know, however, if you’re coming as part of a large group.

In this example, the however interrupts the statement Please let us know if you’re coming as part of a large group.

It can be removed and the sentence still makes sense. In such instances, you need a comma both before and after the however.

Of course, there’s something a little more formal – academic almost – about this word order.

In a business context, it would probably be better to put your however at the start of the sentence.

In which case: Full stop. Cap. Comma.

It’s the age-old exhortation not to describe what’s happening in the story, but rather to allow your reader to experience it through the characters’ actions, thoughts and feelings.

Now, we’re no novelists, but we still find ourselves saying “show, don’t tell” to clients several times a week. What we usually mean is “be concrete and specific, not abstract and general”.

Here’s an example of “telling”, from the home page of a large corporation:

What makes us different is our forward thinking approach to serving clients. We think creatively about business issues and are constantly looking for new and better ways to add value with truly innovative solutions that help to grow our clients’ businesses.

This paragraph is so full of generalised assertions that it’s impossible even to say what sector the company is in (leave your suggestions in the comments).

And rather than sounding different, the firm responsible for this cliché-stuffed paragraph sounds like every other big corporation out there.

Show, don’t tell: how to do it in your business writing
The secret to avoiding bland, meaningless statements like that above is this: don’t tell me how great your services are. Instead, show me what it feels like to be a client.

Don’t tell me your product is different. Tell me what it does for your customer that nothing else does.

And definitely don’t tweet that your blue-chip client just called to say how much they love you. I’ll be much more convinced of your abilities if you offer helpful tips that demonstrate your expertise, and share links that prove you’re in touch with the latest thinking in your field.

Some examples
Below are some examples of telling, followed by showing. Which version is more convincing – the one that tells or the one that shows?

Telling: “We’re a truly global research house”

Showing: “Need advice on how to expand into South Korea? We’ll put you in touch with our guys in Seoul. Thinking of investing in Brazil? Don’t do it until you’ve downloaded the latest report into the country’s emerging economic trends by our analysts in São Paulo.”

Telling: “We’re an award-winning cruise firm”

Showing: “Best Luxury Cruise Firm in the Travel Writers’ Awards 2011, Gold Medal in Chef! magazine’s On-Board Dining Awards 2011, No. 1 in The Happy Passenger‘s Readers’ Choice Awards 2011 (etc).”

Telling: “We’re proud of our consultative approach to recruitment”

Showing: “Finding you the right person for the job starts with understanding the team they’ll be joining. So our first step is to sit down with anyone who has an interest in the candidate. We’ll ask about the culture of your firm. Who your leaders are. What your business strategy is. And, crucially, where the new hire fits in.

It’s time well invested because it allows us to build a complete picture of the person you need. And that means, unlike some other recruiters, we don’t waste your time bombarding you with candidates who aren’t the right fit or who won’t stick around.”

In each case, the first version is the sort of bland corporate statement you’ll find on many a corporate website.

The second version paints a picture that gives potential customers a much clearer idea of what it’s like to do business with the people behind the words. Or it provides specific detail that backs up the claim.

The questions to ask
But what if you’re a writer who’s trying to get a senior executive to give you something more than “We pride ourselves on delivering innovative solutions for clients” or “We bring creativity to everything we do” or “We’re passionate about our work”?

You need to ask specific questions that will elicit examples of what they’re trying to describe, such as:

How does that innovation/creativity/passion work in practice?

How does your innovation/creativity/passion make you different from your competitors?

Can you talk me through a project where innovation/creativity/passion came into play?

Can you give me an example of a problem that was solved through innovation/creativity/passion?

Can you give me an example of that innovation/creativity/passion in action?

What does innovation/creativity/passion look like? (Works particularly well with someone you know to be highly visual.)

They’re mostly variations on the same question – the key is to find out which one works best with your executive. But we guarantee at least one of them will give you a story.

There is a story that an American general once asked Churchill to look over the draft of an address he had written. It was returned with the comment ‘Too many passives and too many zeds.’ The general asked him what he meant and was told: ‘Too many Latinate polysyllabics like “systematize”, “prioritize”, and “finalize”. And then the passives. What if I had said, instead of “we shall fight on the beaches”, “Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter”?

Sadly, all too much business writing is reminiscent of “Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter”.

So if you struggle to get the people in your organisation to talk like human beings, point them to Winston.

Inspiring leaders use short, simple, powerful words.

Not pompous corpspeak packed with off-putting nonsense about synergizing innovative technologies, incentivizing customer engagement and integrating frameworks of excellence.

For more on the Latinate quality of much bad business writing see Speak English, why don’t you?