From now on, says the trade association for investment managers, the “Absolute Returns Sector” will be known as the “Targeted Absolute Returns Sector”.

The reason for the rename? With rumblings of another mis-selling scandal in the works, the IMA wanted to make it absolutely clear that if you put your money in these investments, you might lose some of your dosh.

In what sensible person’s head does “Targeted Absolute Returns Sector” say “you might lose some of your dosh”?

In what sensible person’s head does “Targeted Absolute Returns Sector” not suggest precision, focus and guaranteed profits?

A less disingenuous approach would have been to avoid the “Targeted” and ditch the “Absolute”. I suggest “Attempted Returns Sector”.

You can see what’s happened here. The marketing bod who came up with the new name was told the managers of these funds try their best to make profits for investors but can’t guarantee they’ll succeed.

But a word like “try” doesn’t sound positive, dynamic and businesslike enough. It smacks too much of failure. So instead we get “Targeted”.

In a press release, Daniel Godfrey, IMA Chief Executive, was quoted as saying:

“One key purpose of the Absolute Return Sector review was to make sure that consumers do not inadvertently perceive there to be some implicit guarantee of positive returns due to the name of the sector. Adding the ‘targeted’ description to the sector name fulfils this purpose.”

No, it doesn’t, said several financial journalists and industry players. I quite agree. If anything, the rename has increased the chances of mis-selling. Target your eyes on this space.

See the BBC’s original report on the rename.

This new video, designed to raise awareness about the symptoms of ovarian cancer, is a great example of both.

Everyone in the video has experienced ovarian cancer in their family. I defy you to watch it without shedding a tear (and putting your hand in your pocket).

Please watch and share.

Disclaimer

1. The video was made by a friend of mine, so I might be biased.

2. I lost my mum to bowel cancer last summer, so I might be doubly biased.

On using real people in your comms, see also:

Writing about diversity? Then keep it real

Business writers: show, don’t tell

Story first, strategy second

During the interviews, one name kept cropping up as the company that got diversity right: McKinsey.

This consulting firm, every interviewee said, really knew how to look after its women. It was the firm they all regarded as the model for any company trying to build a more inclusive culture. I suspected it was the firm they all secretly wanted to work for.

Intrigued, I decided to check out the section about diversity on McKinsey’s site.

Here’s how McKinsey’s women’s networking group describes itself:

Who we are
We are world travelers, marathon runners, mothers. We work full-time, part-time, and everything in between. When we want to pursue an interest close to our hearts, we can. When we want to cut down on travel or take a break between projects, we do. With our firm’s support, we create lasting impact.

The slightly corpy “impact” aside, I think this is great. It makes me want to join this band of globe-trotting, maternal athletes (and I am neither maternal nor athletic).

It makes me feel that at McKinsey I could change the world on my own terms, by my own body clock and still have time left over to master the flute.

Why? Because the language is human and concrete. It conveys a sense of real people doing real jobs. People with lives outside of the firm. In short, it demonstrates diversity.

By way of contrast, I thought I’d take a look at the diversity page of the first of McKinsey’s competitors that sprang to my mind.

Filed under “Impact areas”, the page opened with all the hectoring clichés of the typical company vision statement:

Our goal is to build the iconic professional services firm by delivering distinctive client service through the quality of our people. Inspiring and providing an environment in which all our people can give their best is fundamental to this aim. But we can only achieve it if we create a great place to work and have a culture that’s genuinely inclusive and respectful, and which promotes wellbeing both at work and beyond.

There followed another 1,045 words of awful corporate drivel, from which all I took away is that:

1. The piece was written by someone who thought preceding something meaningless or impenetrable with the word “core” makes it sound really important (e.g., “core corporate sustainability objectives”, “global core competencies (GCCs)” and “embedding values into core processes and measurement”).

2. They’re proud of their “firm-wide, mandatory Open Minds training” (proof that big corporations don’t really get irony).

3. They “seek to meet” the standards of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (i.e., they seek to meet the standard of, among other things, not subjecting employees to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment).

4. Their “UK-wide sustained awareness and engagement campaign … highlighted the value of difference” through photograph competitions and food festivals (because “talented” adults in a “high performance culture” don’t look around them/travel abroad/spend Saturday mornings mooching around Borough Market).

All in all, there was much talk of “brand propositions”, “external benchmarking” and “sustainability scorecards”, but not a great deal of humanity. Where McKinsey inspired me, this firm merely asserts the importance of inspiration.

Such cold and intangible business blurbage convinced me that they really did want to build “the iconic professional services firm”. For what is an icon but an image, an abstraction, something not real?

I suspect the difference between this firm and McKinsey is that the latter is further along in the diversity stakes. That’s why McKinsey doesn’t need to hide a lack of achievement behind a torrent of mealy-mouthed biz speak.

Indeed, I suspect McKinsey still has a way to go in other aspects of diversity, if the words of its head of the Hispanic/Latino Client Service Staff employee network are anything to go by:

“At McKinsey, we’re committed to our values, client service, and our network, and to leveraging this within the Hispanic and Latino community”.

(Er, ok then.)

Lessons
1. Don’t tell us about your commitment to diversity – show us how diverse you are. Read more about “show, don’t tell”.

2. Be concrete, not abstract. Don’t bombard me with objectives, propositions and scorecards. Show me actual human beings doing actual jobs.

3. If you’ve some way to go, be honest and down to earth about that too.

4. Nobody, ever (except me, perhaps) is going to read 1,117 words of abstract corporate drivel. Especially online. Keep it short or the whole thing just looks like box-ticking (“we’ve written all this, so we must value diversity”). And that undermines your claims even more.

5. Know your audience. McKinsey’s website spoke to me as a potential employee. The competitor’s site seemed to be written by a committee that was trying to convince the firm’s senior “stakeholders” of the business benefits of diversity.

I suspect an Anglophone colleague has utterly befuddled such readers by sending them an email promising to “advise and revert” or asking them to “please advise and revert”.

If you are one of the confused, all you need to know is this: the phrase “advise and revert” simply means “reply with the information”.

If, however, you are the Anglophone who is confusing your international colleagues, please stop doing so now.

The phrase “advise and revert” is not standard English. It is not an acceptably formal use of the language. It is not speedy, slick shorthand that makes you sound impressively busy and on top of things.

It is pretentious corporate jargon. And it is gobbledygook to most non-native speakers, who would have learned that “to advise” means “to give advice” and “to revert” means “to return to a previous condition or state”.

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes

Imagine if someone had sent you an email that appears to be saying “please give advice and return to your previous condition”. Wouldn’t it stress you out, not knowing what was being asked of you?

Stressing out your colleagues and clients does not make for good business relationships. Perhaps that’s why one international company we’ve worked with even states in its corporate style guide that all written documents should use inclusive language.

“Advise and revert” is the opposite of inclusive. It is language that excludes non-native speakers.

So if you’re working in a global organisation or with international clients, show empathy with all your readers and keep your language simple.

See also “Advise” and “revert”: two words to avoid in your emails

Despite announcing record sales, Apple’s share price fell 10% yesterday.

It was the original opening line of a blog post I published the other week. The moment I pressed “publish” I realised, with horror, that the sentence would have Lynn Truss types fizzing with disgust.

If you’re of an editorial disposition, you’ll recognise my mistake as a dangling modifier. If you’re not editorially inclined – and you didn’t instantly spot my error – read on.

By the end of this post, you’ll be able to impress the sort of people who are impressed with themselves for knowing about things called dangling modifiers.

Look at my original sentence again:

Despite announcing record sales, Apple’s share price fell 10% yesterday.

Read literally, this sentence says the share price announced the record sales, which, of course, is nonsensical.

We say the phrase despite announcing record sales is left dangling because it isn’t logically attached to the second part of the sentence, Apple’s share price fell 10% yesterday.

To fix the error, I had to make Apple rather than Apple’s share price the subject (that is, the thing doing the verb) of the second half of the sentence.

So I hurriedly rewrote my original as:

Despite announcing record sales, Apple experienced a 10% fall in its share price yesterday.

I needn’t have felt too bad about my mistake, because dangling modifiers are everywhere. For example, I often get letters from my local concert hall beginning:

As one of our regular visitors, I would like to invite you to…

Again, read literally, the sentence implies the author of the letter is the regular visitor, which I suspect is not what they mean.

A simple fix might be to say:

As you are one of our regular visitors, I would like to invite you to…

And yesterday’s BBC online report on the Baftas contained this rather confused sentence:

However, despite going into the awards with 10 nominations, Day-Lewis’s prize was Lincoln’s sole success.

This sentence implies that Day-Lewis’s prize had 10 nominations, not the film Lincoln. More correct might have been:

However, Day-Lewis’s prize was the only success for Lincoln, which went into the awards with 10 nominations.

Does it matter if you dangle?

Style guides rail against the dangling modifier because it supposedly confuses readers. I’m not so sure.

Did my uncorrected first sentence really leave you baffled by the idea of a sentient share price going around announcing things?

Were you in any doubt who was the regular visitor to the concert hall?

Did you really assume Daniel Day-Lewis’s Bafta was nominated for 10 Baftas?

If you heard any of those sentences in daily conversation would you stop the speaker and ask for clarification? I’m fairly sure you wouldn’t (unless, of course, you’re a pedantic prescriptivist with no manners).

Lessons

1. Even professional writers make mistakes. Everyone needs a second pair of eyes on their work.

2. Get a third pair of eyes if you can. A colleague also missed my dangler.

3. Dangling modifiers are easy to use, but also easy to fix.

4. Dangling modifiers are hard to spot, so train your eyes and ears to pick up on them.

5. Try not to dangle, but don’t worry too much if you do. Most of the time, we’ll still know what you’re trying to say.

6. Dangling modifiers don’t muddle readers. But some might think they’re a sign of muddled thinking, so fix them when you can.

7. Just knowing the phrase dangling modifier gives you editorial credibility. For Lynn Truss clout, take every opportunity to tut over other people’s danglers.

So we were delighted to discover the Up-Goer Five text editor. This online tool challenges you to describe an idea using only the most common 1,000 words in English.

The name “Up-Goer Five” comes from an attempt to describe a Saturn V rocket in this way (“rocket” is a no-no – hence “up-goer”). Check out this charming diagram of “the only flying space car that’s taken anyone to another world”.

And here’s an example of someone in the pharma industry describing drug discovery according to the Up-Goer Five rules.

Even for plain speakers like us, it’s not easy to describe what you do using only the most common 1,000 words. We can only wonder how people who use phrases like “integrated delivery solutions” and “driving operational excellence” would cope.

Our Doris and Bertie homepage failed the Up-Goer Five test so we rewrote it using the Up-Goer Five text editor. Tell us what you think:

We are people who help businesses build stronger relationships with other people: the people who buy the things the businesses make, the people with the money to help the businesses make the things they make, and the people who make the things for the businesses.

Our writing is clear, simple and to the point. No hard words and boring talk. Just words other people will want to read.

Because most of the businesses we work with do things with money, we write like Mr Buffett, who is the greatest money man in the world. Well known for his simple talking, Mr Buffett writes all his business papers as if he were talking to his sisters. Like most people, his sisters know about lots of things, but they do not know about money.

Talk to us today for help with writing and word changing.

Could you describe what you do in simple words? Have a go and post the results in the comments below.

Is it any wonder, when the firm’s investor relations homepage contains this sort of impenetrable gunk:

Reclassification of Historical Information
In fiscal year 2013, Apple established the Greater China operating segment, reallocated certain manufacturing costs and variances to its operating segments, and realigned the presentation of product information in its summary data schedule to provide greater visibility to revenue by product category. Reclassification of historical information to align with the new presentation is available here. [Links to various spreadsheets]

It’s hard to be sure, but this text appears to be saying: “we’ve jigged a few columns around to make the figures look better”. Hardly instils confidence, does it?

Nefarious nonsense like this just confirms our long-held view that whenever a company starts talking gobbledygook to its shareholders, that’s the time to pull your money out.

JJB Sports, Clinton Cards and Kodak are all examples of ailing firms that have hidden a poor performance behind the kind of pretentious, highly abstract biz-blather Apple now seems to be adopting.

Incidentally, we’ve also noticed that, post-Jobs, Apple has begun talking to its customers in the kind of mealy-mouthed corpspeak that was previously the preserve of its competitors.

Lesson: If you’re writing an annual report or other document for investors, make like Warren Buffett and be clear, honest and to the point. Even if the news is bad, the more your shareholders trust you, the more likely they are to stick around.

If you’re going to use being smart as a selling point in an advertisement, your accompanying copy should be pretty intelligent. That’s the angle this LG ad went with, and its physical appearance as some kind of poem certainly suggests the copywriter is doing something very clever. Except it’s not a poem. And it’s not especially clever.

BE YOU BE SMART, a rather forceful headline, throws two ideas together without much care for the reader. On first glance, I saw it as ‘BE YOUBE SMART’. Perhaps a particular kind of smart that doesn’t need to separate two clauses. Maybe that’s just me, but rolling these words together without any punctuation sounds odd. Like you’re blurting it out in a panic, hoping to say it quickly enough that no one will think about it. Unluckily, LG – I have thought about it. A lot.

Then there’s the poetic appearance of the prose. In places individual lines appear to emphasise certain aspects of the product. ‘For easier access’ and ‘built to make your life easier’ work well as ideas worthy of their own line, indeed. ‘While saving energy and’ and ‘range which cares for your clothes’ are a bit harder to justify. Maybe this style wasn’t intended, maybe some malicious designer threw in random paragraphs to mess with us. But by accident or design, it creates an awkward read. And awkward reads don’t inspire confidence in a product.

One thing this disjointed paragraphing does achieve is slowing down the reading process enough to allow a reader to pick up on more pedantic errors. Like a lack of hyphenated adjective compounds. Apparently this writer thought hyphens were only necessary for product jargon, such as Door-in-Door and HOM-BOT. A bot ‘that cleans the hard to reach corners’ is technically cleaning the ‘hard’ in order to reach the corners. A bot ‘that cleans the hard-to-reach corners’ is doing a difficult job.

I doubt anyone’s really going to misinterpret it, but LG invited me to be smart. And when I try to be smart while looking at an advertisement about being smart, I take note of the way copywriters construct their sentences.

Phil Williams is a freelance writer, a sometime English teacher and an occasional vagabond, currently based in Brighton. As a copywriter and a creative writer, he now runs two websites: www.copywritenow.co.uk and www.writerightnow.co.uk.

Fluid transfer solutions?

It could mean anything, couldn’t it?

Syringes? Thermos flasks? Water pistols? Clouds? The human urinary system?

We’ve actually mentioned this particular crime against copy before (here and here), so we happened to know what they were talking about. But we were dismayed to learn that the phrase fluid transfer solutions is still out there.

For readers bemused and befuddled by this wordy, abstract and highly ambiguous descriptor, Pirtek does at least provide a translation.

You can see it in the tiny text on the lower left-hand corner of the van:

Yes, folks. It’s a fancy way of saying “hose”.

The very fact Pirtek felt the need to translate fluid transfer solutions tells you something. Pirtek knows that no builder in need of an emergency hose ever thought to himself: “now, where can I get a me a fluid transfer solution?”

Pirtek’s copy is a great example of how self-important corporate jargon could get between you and your customer.

And it makes me wonder how much Google traffic Pirtek is losing to its down-to-earth, plain-speaking rival at www.hoses.co.uk.

…and this one…

…and this one…

They’re what Naomi Wolf once described as “beauty porn”: pictures of women, aimed at women. And designed to make us all feel rubbish about our wobbly bits.

What made them all the more alarming was that they were accompanied by this nauseating bit of baby speak:

Like the pics, the infantilised tone of voice seems primarily aimed at the body-conscious woman. Whoever wrote it must be the only person on the planet who hasn’t noticed that Innocent-style “wackaging” is deeply annoying and the subject of mainstream ridicule.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on here.

Those photos
Don’t know about you, ladies, but I regularly shower with my girlfriends. And isn’t it every girl’s idea of fun to head to the beach with eight other women for a spot of competitive ab-flaunting, masquerading as female bonding?

Here’s how it happened:

Client: Can we have some nice pics to go on our boxes? Something aspirational, perhaps? Something that conveys healthy living?

Agency: How about we fly our overpaid middle-aged photographer and art director to Brazil* with a group of women half their age? That’ll be £50K.

“Eat Beautiful”
Eat is a verb (a “doing” word). Beautiful is an adjective (a “describing” word). Here, though, “beautiful” is being used as if it were a noun (a “person, place or thing” word).

For most of us, nounifying an adjective makes you sound like a child who hasn’t quite grasped the underlying structure of the language.

But in Ad Land, it allows you to triple your fee because of your creative way with words. That’s why it’s everywhere.

“Once Upon a Time”
Time for your bed time story, little girl! And to make sure you get it, we’re going to use Capital Letters To Underscore The Point.

Here’s how it happened:

Client: Should we fill that white space on the bottom of the sushi box with anything?

Agency: That’s not a white space – that’s an opportunity for storied branding. We’ll engage your customers in your company mythos by identifying your tribe, bringing them to your corporate campfire and aligning them around your narrative touchpoints. That’ll be another thirty grand.

“itsu fit-su pot-su fitsu”
I’ve no idea how this random bit of toddler-talk made it past a first draft. A satirical contribution by the agency’s one female copywriter, perhaps? We’d follow it up with:

itsu fit-su WTFsu?
itsu fit-su I feel sick-su
itsu fit-su, gets on my t…

The bit about Pink Floyd’s “breathtaking” music…
When Pink Floyd were making their “breathtaking” music, every one of those Brazilian beach babes was at least three decades away from being born.

But “the Floyd” (as he no doubt likes to call them) is the favourite band of some middle-aged male involved in the writing process. For how else would this slightly creepy daddy’s voice suddenly intrude into all the toddler-talk?

The bit about itsu not selling cheesy baguettes, cakes, butter, gloopy sauces, mayonnaise and naughty gunks
Here, read: “For all the above, head over to the branch of our sister company Pret a Manger across the road. That’s where you’ll find all the big brawny boys with their big blokey bellies (and some very naughty girls who don’t have time to police their teeny tiny tum tums).”

Healthier & happier solutions
Either they mean the miso soup or “solutions” crept in when the copy was run by someone from corporate.

Big smile, small tummy
Yes, this was lifted almost word for word from one of Harry Enfield’s “Stupidlosophy” range (“infantile cards for the adult idiot”).

——–
*We’ve cropped it, but a Brazilian flag appears in the photo of the showering babes.