Some rules are not meant to be broken
Is it all right to spell all right as alright? Is it correct to use hopefully in the sense of I hope? Infer or imply, do they mean the same? Is data singular or plural? In refuting or denying are you doing the same thing? Should a letter close with Yours sincerely or Yours faithfully? Or does it not matter which?
We may give little thought to our use of English in informal, everyday situations, but in professional business communication you have to be precise and correct, if not eloquent.
The boundaries of language and form are being constantly pushed and constantly evolving lexicons can only be a good thing. Technology has created words—reboot, cache, client server, motherboard, et al—that we did not recognise a few years earlier. Two telling examples:
- A portal not so long ago merely meant a doorway, especially a large and imposing one; today it means an internet site providing an access or links to other sites.
- Tweet is something that was once associated with canaries alone; today you tweet, I tweet, everybody tweets.
Two relatively recent developments have put added pressure on the challenge of using language correctly. SMS, or short messaging service, where inexplicably someone may text you: R V Meetg? When I get a message like that I grit my teeth; it’s difficult to bear such flagrant violation of grammar and spelling. To a message like that I am tempted not to reply. Ever.
And, of course, then there is the ubiquitous Twitter, where the 140-character limit (now 280) has been used as an excuse for bad grammar, and worse spelling, since 2006.
There is one predictable thing about language—it moves in only one direction, forward. Nostalgia may often envelop writers in pursuit of etymologies but technology pushes us relentlessly forward and constantly stretches linguistic frontiers.
For instance, physicists cannot explain why ‘quantum jump’, which means ‘a sudden alteration in atom’s energy’ and is therefore exceedingly small, has leapt into general public usage to mean huge change.
To be sure, the use of language exercises, or should exercise, our minds—whether we are writing an e-mail to a client, or writing to our employer to explain temporary absence, and, most definitely, when we are writing a blog. We wonder, or we should if we do not, about idiom, good usage, and the most appropriate way of putting things. You don’t want to sound too casual, too colloquial, and too flippant. Conversely, you do not want to seem too ponderous, distant, pompous and unnatural. You want to use expressions that strike a resonant note. And please stay clear of hackneyed clichés. Always.
With care and commonsense most people can write cleanly and confidently. Bad writers consider long words more impressive than short ones, and use words like usage instead of use or methodologies instead of methods. They qualify everything with “It has been noted after careful consideration…” and the facts get buried under heaps of useless words.
Writing is about being careful. It is not a unique gift or talent. It is about communication and nothing else. It would be foolish to use phrases like raison d’être or piecé de résistance with an audience that does not have even a nodding acquaintance with French. You are just showing off. Pomposity does not a good writer make; just say the most important reason or remarkable feature.
Never use a word the meaning of which you are not absolutely sure of. Good writing often is merely about keeping it simple. Simplicity, to use a cliché, is the ultimate sophistication.
