UN-THAMED

I don’t know David Thame but, if his gloriously grumpy full frontal attack on standards of language in the modern PR industry (and journalism?) is anything to go by, I think we could probably share an amicable pint.

The public relations professionals who have patiently sat through my own training sessions will know my feelings about bad use of apostrophes, capitalisation, singular and plural - as well as phrases that don’t mean what people think they do (‘decimate’, for instance, and ‘quantum leap’).

So I make no apologies for reprinting the following rant from David’s blog. This experienced newspaper and magazine journalist is aiming it at the PR industry but, hopefully, we can all identify with the irritants that lurk behind his fury.

Over to him …

* Please don’t bother with “branding” in the body of the text.

It’s annoying for me and for the sub-editors who have to remove it all. Sometimes we get fed up removing it and simply spike the story.

I’m not going to print, for instance, Fortyspringgardens (one word) simply because someone somewhere has dreamed that up as branding - nor will I print AMEC (instead of Amec) or adidas (instead of Adidas).

It’s not the job of any publication to violate the language to help someone’s marketing strategy. Only proper English words used in the proper way stand a chance…. If your clients insist tell them the story runs a high risk of being spiked and to stop being so daft.

* Congratulations. Oh please, please spare me quotes like this: Norman Halfwit, director at Idiot Developments, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Sh!t Marketing as our fourth tenant.”

Suzy Blonde, director at Sh!t, said: “We’re so happy to bring our expanding business to an Idiot Developments scheme.”

Not only is Sh!t a silly brand name I won’t use - but the quotes add nothing. The day the developer says: “This is a tawdry little scheme and we’re very surprised to see some one daft enough to pay our exorbitant rent” and the tenant says “Our overdraft is staggering and I have these terrible headaches all the time, so we thought what the hell,” is the day I start to use quotes like these.

If it’s just a little story then a little unpretentious (brief) press release will do nicely, thanks. Don’t fabricate daft self-congratulatory quotes.

* Please remember to tell me what your clients do.

Whilst it’s ok for Deloittes not to remind everyone that they are accountants, and no real hardship not to be told that Tesco is a grocer, it isn’t the case that I immediately understand who Hagface Bottombreath LLP are. Lawyers, accountants, procurers of immoral women? I have no idea.

And when you do say who your clients are, please don’t imagine this is an ideal opportunity for salesmanship. If they are architects please say “architects” and not “consultants to the built environment” or, worse still, “the world’s leading consultants to the built environment”  or, more hilariously, “the East Midlands leading consultants to the Built Environment.”

I’ll strike stuff like this out and replace it with “architects” and I promise that no subliminal message of their global greatness will remain.

And whilst I’m riding my high horse at a gallop, might I add: first, that “LLP” and “Ltd” will also get struck out? I’m writing news stories, not legal documents, and besides NO ONE CARES; second, if companies describe themselves, in their own PR, as “major” or “leading” it simply makes me think they are minor and following: let your reputation speak for itself, its much safer.

* Adjectives.

Best avoided unless incontestably true, especially since they are almost always either exhausted old warhorses (prime, prestigious, buoyant) that will never, ever, find their way into copy I’m writing - or simply misleading and wrong.

I’m afraid an office block in Bury or an industrial unit in Stockport is never - will never be - prestigious.

And anyone who can’t think of a better way to describe a busy market than to call it “buoyant” should be invited to check the dictionary meaning or, better still, a thesaurus.

* Don’t play around with quantities.

In other words if your client has completed 24 projects say “24 projects” not “nearly 25 projects” or “more than 20 projects”.

The phrase “more than” is only (only) applicable if the amount “more than” is very small compared with the original number, for instance: more than £1m is acceptable if the price paid is actually £1,001,000. But if the price was £1.1m then say so.

* Picture captions.

Captions like the following are absolutely not acceptable - pictures get junked, and art editors have hysterics, if the are used:  ”Four members of the Idiot Developments team” or “Sally Blonde (centre) and the winning team” or “The new recruits at Sh!t Marketing”. 

What’s wrong with all of these is a failure to comply with this simple rule: YOU MUST IDENTIY EVERYONE IN A PICTURE, BY NAME, LEFT TO RIGHT. 

* Says and said.

Amazing how many people get this wrong. In features people say things, in news stories things were said. Features present tense, news past tense.

* Always use English, not Latin.

This may sound obvious - but the house style of all but the silliest publications insists you use English words, rather than the Latin alternatives, if you can.

So it’s never “per sq ft” (per is Latin), which should be replaced with “a sq ft”, and likewise it’s never “etc” but use instead “and so on.” I.e. and e.g are replaced with “for instance” or “for example”.  

Naturally all convoluted legal phrases based on Latin must be anglicised. Having said this, where a Latin phrase is being used as a Latin phrase, then it’s ok. Ditto for French words and phrases and, on the rare occasions we use them in normal English, Italian, German, and the rest.

(Note that I didn’t say “etc” at the end of that sentence, but I did allow myself “ditto” - Italian, I think, and ultimately from dicere, the Latin verb ‘to say’ - at the beginning, but you’ll be getting the hang of this by now…..)

* Don’t use full stops if you can avoid them.

For instance sq ft and not sq. ft. or, worse still, sq.ft. (without a space). Similarly, it’s Mr, Mrs etc.

* Never use superscript or subscript. So its 10 sq ft and not 10 ft².

* Capital letters are a curse - remember this and you’ve got to the root of modern English print media style.

It is never Director of Marketing, only director of marketing. A development is not a Development. The tax partner is not the Tax Partner. Nobody signs Contracts, only contracts.

In the best publications - including almost all those for whom I write - this policy is carried to what looks like extremes. A meeting of prime ministers - for instance - has no capitals, although the Prime Minister might. So - no capital letters in job titles and never, ever, use capitals for nouns (unless they really are proper nouns).