stevenyenzer

[stevenyenzer]

Using Word’s AutoCorrect for Self-Editing

Even the best writers need a good editor. But you can give your editor a break by using Microsoft Word’s AutoCorrect feature to catch your own mistakes before you press Send.

It’s easy! Go to File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options. Under Replace text as you type, enter the text you want to replace with the text you want to replace it with.

Here are some ways I use AutoCorrect:

Use it to follow a style guide. Got a client who always capitalizes the “Of” in the middle of their organization’s name? Set your AutoCorrect to fix it every time you type the name with a lowercase “of.” This also works great for catching client pet peeves.

Use it to recycle specific phrases. Mission-specific language often appears across many different appeals. Save yourself time (and make sure you get the wording right) by copying the whole phrase into an AutoCorrect entry. For example, set “help those experienceing homelessness” to change to “help those experiencing homelesness, poverty, and food insecurity.”

Use it as a blacklist. Got certain words you want to avoid using? Set AutoCorrect to replace them with gobbledygook (I use “KTKTKTKTKTK”). I’ve recently started training myself to stop using violent or gun-based idioms (“fight,” “take aim,”“combat”) and I’m still surprised every time AutoCorrect catches me.

Use it to save time with special characters. If you have to write often about a program with a special character in its name, save time by adding an AutoCorrect entry that includes the special character. For example, naming the late-90s boy band is faster if you set “98 degrees” to correct to “98°.”

Bonus Tip

You can even set AutoCorrect to format text: adding bolding, changing the font, and more. Just highlight the formatted text you want to use then click File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options. The Formatted text radio button will be available to use.

[stevenyenzer]

I Am Stuck on Band-Aid

Just realized that the Band-Aid jingle has to specify that the singer is stuck on "Band-Aid brand." The perils of a genericized trademark.

[stevenyenzer]

A Grammatical Spectrum

A lawyer friend of my recently told me that the more serious the legal document he was writing, the less stringently he relied on grammar.

It makes sense to me. Grammar is just one tool we use to communicate effectively, and it is most important when we're writing for laypeople. Having an agreed-upon set of rules for sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, etc. helps ensure that when things get wacky, the audience still has something to fall back on

But as you rise into the rarefied world of a technical field like law, grammar becomes less important. I also saw this in my job as a technical writer, reading documentation provided by software developers.

Experts don't need the handholds that grammar normally provides. If you forget to define the referent of a pronoun, the expert can probably guess at what you mean. You can also bend the rules to your own ends. My lawyer friend told me that sometimes he and his colleagues use capitalization for emphasis, even when a word or phrase shouldn't technically be capitalized.

This practice only becomes problematic when the experts have trouble transitioning into writing for laypeople. That's why developers rely on technical writers to "translate" their expert-speech into friendly copy. And why lawyers... Well, maybe it's why law writing is so indecipherable.

[stevenyenzer]

The Etymology of Branding

The one college course that influenced my writing more than any other was called The Rhetoric of Style, taught by Dr. Jeanne Fahnestock. I learned more about what makes good writing in that class than a year’s worth of other English courses. One of my favorite assignments involved etymology. The basic idea is that most of the English words we read come from one of three sources: Germanic, French, or Latin.

Germanic words are the oldest and earthiest — words like fireplace, cow, and car. German-sourced words are short and unpretentious.

French words are more elegant and usually imply class and distinction. Many of our fancy color words come from French: chartreuse, burgundy, and even lowly beige.

Latin words are neutral and dispassionate. They dominate technical fields like science and medicine.

Because English is such a populous language, it’s a fun exercise to look for a set of three synonyms that cover each of these three origins. For example: house (Germanic), mansion (French), and domicile (Latin). Or topping (Germanic), sauce (French), and condiment (Latin). It’s an imperfect exercise, but it highlights the obvious connotative differences between the three origins. Consciously or not, great writers utilize these etymological distinctions to imbue their language with a certain tone. As do great copywriters.

Let’s break down the origins of some famous taglines. (For analytical purposes, it’s more useful to examine only the nouns, verbs, and adjectives. That’s because the vast majority of English’s most common words (fundamental stuff like the and of) are Germanic.)

American Express: “Don’t leave home without it.” Ogilvy & Mather,1975

This famous Ogilvy & Mather campaign for American Express actually started as “Don’t leave home without them” (American Express Traveler’s Cheques). It’s a classic example of a Germanic royal flush — every word is from Old English. This kind of straight-talking, casual tagline is very common in advertising, but it makes particular sense for something like traveler’s checks.

American Express wants you to feel safe with them when you’re away from home, and it uses plain-ol’ Germanic words to do so.

French alternative: Don’t depart from your residence without it. Latin alternative: Don’t exit your domicile without it.

Nyquil: “The nighttime sniffling sneezing coughing aching stuffy head fever so you can rest medicine.”

It’s no wonder that nearly all of the onomatopoetic nouns in this tagline are of Germanic extraction (sniffle, sneeze, cough, ache). Humans love complaining about their ailments, so of course words for sickness are as old as the English language. Nighttime, head, and rest are also Germanic. (Stuff comes from French, although I’ll note that the practice of adding a -y suffix to form an adjective comes from Old English.)

The slogan ends with the French medicine, lifting us up from the dirty German sickness words into the civilized French of healing. It’s a transition from bodily illness to scientific medicine.

BMW: “The ultimate driving machine.” Ammirati & Puris, 1975

Consistent with BMW’s key message of quality, luxury, and engineering prowess, this tagline from Ammirati & Puris relies on the Latin ultimate and the French machine.

It’s a beautiful sentence that blends the elegant with the technical — exactly the image BMW hopes to evoke. So it makes sense that last year the company officially made “The ultimate driving machine” its slogan. Although BMW has experimented with other slogans over its history, there’s a reason “the ultimate driving machine” keeps popping up. It’s a marvel of a sentence.

All-Germanic alternative: The greatest driving tool. All-French alternative: The superior driving device. All-Latin alternative: The optimum driving apparatus.

Miller High Life: “The champagne of beers.”

This one’s about as close as you’ll get to an etymology joke, especially for a beer ad.

High Life has been sporting this slogan for nearly a century. The contrast of the French champagne with the Germanic beer is inherently humorous, and serves to both acknowledge the beer’s blue-collar origins and elevate it above comparable brews. Although it may have started in reference to the beer’s golden hue and high level of carbonation, this ad makes it clear that the latter-day Miller wants to play with that contrast between high and low.

[stevenyenzer]

Why You Can't Write Off Design

As a design advocate (read: apologist), I often find myself fighting for project leaders to spend time and money on things like logos, layout, and even coloring. I understand the importance of the elements of design in establishing a brand. But it can be very hard to convince clients of that fact.

Good design (and really, bad design) establishes brand identity in an instant — far faster and far better than even the best copy.

Look at a publication like The Daily Beast (loud, aggressive, tabloid-y) compared to The Wall Street Journal (button-down, all business, safe). The contrast is obvious, but consider how quickly that contrast becomes apparent. You could spot it from ten feet away. You could spot it in black-and-white. You could spot it if the headlines were written in Klingon.

Design may fade into the background, but that's because it is the background. It's the canvas. Don't start with a shitty canvas.

When things go wrong, it's rarely possible to attribute the problem to bad design. When stakeholders already consider design an afterthought, they're unlikely to believe that something like their dashed-off text treatment logo could've contributed to low traffic numbers.

But remember: it all starts with design. It's the first thing your audience sees. So make it the first thing you think about.

[stevenyenzer]

Takoma Park Lowers Voting Age

Earlier this year, Takoma Park, MD became the first place in the country to lower its voting age to 16. I talked to the councilman who proposed the amendment, and the first teen to register since the change.

Originally aired September 27, 2013 on Metro Connection, a weekly feature magazine on WAMU 88.5 (the NPR affiliate in Washington, D.C.).

[stevenyenzer]

Salesman for Eternity: Billy Mays Dies at 50

I can't explain why The Diamondback decided against dedicating even a few words to the life of Billy Mays, the man whose militant approach to capitalism made him a modern legend. Surely no one was more dedicated to old-fashioned hawking than Mays, who was famously unable (or unwilling) to adjust the volume of his voice. Billy Mays didn't waste his time with focus groups, and he didn't mess  around with viral marketing. The man just sold.

Who else presented such an affront to the smoothing-over of American advertising? Logos are losing capital letters and even length: MSNBC is now msnbc, SciFi is Syfy and the Pizza Hut logo is now simply "The Hut" (but  I still don't want to eat there). Billy Mays spoke in capital letters. He didn't try to sell you a lifestyle or a look. He was like the uncle who had trouble with e-mail and typed everything with the caps lock on.

And really, who else could have sold something called the Awesome Auger or Mighty Putty? William Shatner may seduce me into booking my next flight with Priceline, but I wouldn't trust the man  to sell me gardening equipment or magical putty. Same goes with Justin Long and John Hodgman: They're cute for computers, but what do you think they'd do with a cleaning product "powered by the air you breathe and activated by the water you drink?"

The answer is that they would look like little wimpy babies next to Billy Mays.

Mays embodies the side of capitalism that society is trying to escape: It's the more personal side; the sweatier, louder side. The side that--let's face it--is a little seedy. Billy Mays isn't running the cute DVD vending machine at the grocery store - he's at the mall kiosk trying to pitch you hair extensions. And no matter how hard we work to remove human interaction from sales, Billy Mays reminded us that human interaction  is what sales is all about.

Because even if Mays’ cartoonish mannerisms made him the occasional object of ridicule,  the man was good at what he did. The Washington Post reported in August 2008 that Mays was the most sought-after man in this business, and his decision to work with a product could be that product's only shot.

Billy Mays walked a thin line between self-awareness and self-parody, and his funeral was no exception. The pallbearers donned his classic dark blue button-downs and khakis, and at the end of the ceremony they counted to three, threw up their thumbs and shouted "Hi, Billy Mays here!"

Mays himself was buried in an OxiClean shirt; a salesman for eternity.

Originally published in The Diamondback on July 7, 2009.