Writing and Editing

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Will SEO spell the end of headline pun-ishment?

Not everyone agrees, but I’ve always loved newspaper headlines that employ the art of the pun.

Not every headline writer should try their hand at this technique. A special skill-set is required to pull off a really dynamite pun. Most headline puns are stretches, ill-conceived or repetitive. (Many travel writers have worn out their welcome with headlines like Czech It Out and Going Dutch. But a good pun headline is a delight and a definite enticement to read further.

It’s a shame that search engine optimization is killing the pun.

I’m not one of those who believes that SEO is destroying good writing. Lazy practitioners of SEO may load keywords into paragraphs with such wild abandon that they become unreadable. But good SEO technique should actually make headlines and lead paragraphs better, since they’ll help readers focus on the article’s core content.

But puns just don’t help articles rise to the top of search results. An article on SEO techniques for journalists from eConsultancy dished up this example:

Poole Council replaced their town centre Christmas tree with a green cone that plays music and flashes inbuilt lights. Naturally, almost every newspaper covered this story with the headline ‘Elf and Safety.’ However, I heard the story on the radio and then Google News’d it at work. I searched for ‘Christmas tree health and safety,” so ended up reading one of the few articles that didn’t make that joke in its headline. (The Telegraph ran with ‘Poole axes real Christmas tree for safer fake one because of health and safety.’ There’s a paper that gets it.)

Therein lies the problem. With a paper newspaper, you flip through all the pages and glance at all the headlines. Online, you search for stories that interest you. The headline you see while turning pages isn’t one you’d ever think to inform your search when exploring Google News.

There are ways around the problem. One answer to a LinkedIn question asking how to retain puns and still meet SEO requirements suggested putting the pun in the headline but the more descriptive headline in the title tag.

Not everyone appreciates puns in headlines. “Clarity and ease of understanding should be the aim of all headline writers, whatever the medium they’re destined for,” wrote one LinkedIn member answering the pun headline. And David Higgerson, head of multimedia for Trinity Mirror Regionals, insists that, “Far from killing headline writing, the Internet provides a way to tweak a skill to reach a new audience.”

But how many headlines do you remember from 35 years ago? That’s how long ago it was that I worked for the (now-defunct) Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle, where Steve Springer was the sports editor. (Steve went on to cover the Lakers for the Los Angeles Times; he’s also written several sports books.) Steve was a master of the pun headline. One day, he planned a large color photo on the front page of the sports section featuring colorful yacht sails that were photographed at a regatta in nearby Oxnard. The regatta happened to be held on election day. Steve’s headline that has stuck in my mind for three and a half decades?

Heavy boater turnout

And if that’s not enough, here are some classics I uncovered while doing some searching for this post:

A British Airways flight attendant was suspended for stealing a muffin that a passenger left uneaten on his tray. The Sun‘s headline:

Much ado about muffin at BA

The New York Post printed this headline over a movie review:

Iron Man Steels the Screen—Sure Hit is Weld Done

The Sun—known for its puns—drafted this headline with an unheralded football team from Caledonia beat the Scottish titans, the Celtics:

Super Calley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious

The Detroit News ran a story about a no-smoking ban taking effect at the stadium where the baseball Tigers play:

Tigers: No butts in stadium seats

A newsmagazine (the author of the post the recounted the headline couldn’t remember if it was Time or Newsweek reviewed a movie called “Switching Channels,” a poor remake of the classic Cary Grant/Rosiland Russell film, “His Girl Friday” (itself a remake of “The Front Page”):

Weakened Update

No less an institution that The New York Times has gotten into the act, as with its obituary of the artist, Salvador Dali:

So long, Dali, it’s been surreal

A food review from some forgotten publication declared:

What a Friend We Have in Cheeses

When a volunteer working at a bingo hall was the victim of an assault, a newspaper reported:

Bingo hall worker B-10 and robbed

And the Chicago Sun-Times was just one of the newspapers that couldn’t resist a pun when the fast-food chain, Wendy’s, suffered a PR nightmare with the discovery of a severed finger in a cup of chili:

Finger in Chili Not Getting Any Easier to Digest

Perhaps the headline pun isn’t all that long-lived a tradition. Perhaps it’s not as clear and concise as a statement of fact. But it’s creative, it’s fun and it sticks with you. As newspapers continue their migration online and adopt SEO techniques, I’ll miss seeing these journalistic gems.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Twitter query results: Least favorite corporate jargon

Last week, after seeing some particularly egregious corporate jargon, I queried my Twitter followers about their least favorite jargon. Here are the responses I got:

• Leveraging low-cost locations (as a euphemism for moving US jobs overseas)
• Class-leading
• Value-added (One of Dave Fleet’s 10 most irritating PR phrases)
• A value-add proposition
• Impact (used as a verb)
• Synergy
• Leveraging synergies
• Working as designed
• Bandwidth (as in “I don’t have the bandwidth to help out)
• Cutting edge (this is another one that made Dave Fleet’s list)
• Leading edge
• Industry leader (see Diana Huff’s comment below)
• Good PR (as in “get me some good PR”)
• Best practices
• Strategic
• Over-arching
• At the end of the day (this one made Oxford University’s list of the 10 most irritating phrases)
• Ear job (the act of passing on juicy gossip verbally, in private. “I’ll give you an ear-job later”)
• Drilling down
• 24/7 (this one also made Oxford University’s list)
• Mission critical
• Granular insights and solutions
• Reaching out
• From a 50,000 (pick your number) foot level
• Working in silos
• Bio-break (time build into your day to breathe, relieve yourself, walk, look out the window, etc.)
• Tell me your net net
• How does that measure to your performance, department and corporate goals?
• Do we have a quorum?

Several of the answers I got via Twitter have to be presented in the context of the entire tweet:

• Mark Meyer: I’m all about leveraging the data to produce quanitfiable, actionable results that we all can use to put the rubber to the road.
• Ben Vear: “compensation” it’s salary, pay, whatever. Pares down the obsceness of the actual pay for CEO’s.
• Trevor Longino: I have worked for a client who “Levereged opportunities to create disruptive technology in emerging markets.” Honest.
• Mary Cullen: “Leveraging actionable best-in-class solutions.” Saw this jargon just yesterday in marketing statement. Ugh.
• Lisa Diig: Do not ping, tap, or circle back with me. I want nothing moving forward, and i have nothing on my plate.
• Sheri Rosen: “Engagement” Heresy? Sorry. I’m sick of hearing about engaged employees when it has nothing to do with marriage.
• Diana Huff: Leading! Every company in the world is a leading company—even small companies in tiny towns. Drives me insane.

I dunno, Sheri. People engage in all kinds of activities that don’t involve marriage!

Melanie Seasons sent me the 20 mosthated business speak phrases from the UK, commissioned by Ramada Encore and conducted by YouGov.co.uk. Many of these are repeats of those listed above, although I must admit I don’t get “all of it.” Here are the results:

• Thinking outside the box
• Touch base
• At the end of the day
• Going forward
• All of it
• Blue sky thinking
• Out of the box
• Credit crunch
• Heads up
• Singing from the same hymn sheet
• Proactive
• Downsizing
• Ducks in a row
• Brainstorming
• Thought shower
• 360-degree thinking
• Flag it up
• Pushing the envelope
• At this moment in time
• In the loop

Melanie also sent along links to a couple of videos Ramada produced in response to the results. They’re based on the new word “buffling,” a combination of “business” and “waffling,” which Melanie suggests may be coming into more common use outside the U.S. (although it’s new to me). In any case, the videos are a hoot:

If your most despised corporate word or phrase doesn’t appear here, let me know.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Yes, punctuation counts

Maybe I’m just getting old and curmudgeonly, but I find myself growing increasingly irked when I read blog posts and tweets from communicators and PR practitioners that feature incorrect punctuation in the word “its.” My sensitivity to this error may be increasing but it seems to be occurring more and more often.

It doesn’t bother me all that much when I see the mistake in the work of people who don’t write for a living. But if you claim to be a writer, well, come on. Screwing up this fundamental bit of language is like a mechanic installing the wrong spark plugs during a tune-up.

I’m not a rigid grammarian. I split infinitives with glee and happily end sentences with prepositions when these violations of the rules make the sentence sound better. But the “its and it’s” issue isn’t negotiable and we look unprofessional and just plain dumb when we don’t get it right.

The rule is simple. It’s, with the apostrophe, is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” Period. An apostrophe never apears in “its” for any other reason. If you can replace it’s with “it is” or “it has,” it gets an apostrophe. Otherwise, it doesn’t. And an apostrophe never appears after the word, as in its’. Its, with no apostrophe at all, is a possessive pronoun. You use its when whatever you’re talking about belongs to “it,” as in “A tiger can’t change its stripes.”

Words are the instruments of the professional communicator. Let’s use them correctly.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Awesome, dude

by guest blogger Pete Shinbach

What’s with the word “awesome?”  I remember when awesome things were…. well, they were awesome. The Egyptian pyramids are awesome.  So’s Peru’s Machu Piccu, the Great Wall in China and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. In my lifetime, landing on the Moon was awesome.  So was the discovery of the polio vaccine and Don Larson’s perfect game.  But today, the bloom’s off the awesome rose. Two examples.

First, a few months ago, I was buying something somewhere and the price for the purchase was something like $1.08.  I gave the kid at the register a dollar bill and, fishing in my pants pocket, said something like, “I think I have the change.”  His response: “Awesome.”

Flash forward to this morning. I was on the phone with Wells Fargo Bank, telling them that I wanted to close one of my two accounts, a savings account somehow linked to a checking account. No need to get into why but suffice to say that I ain’t a happy Wells Fargo camper. Anyway, Rachel, the service rep with whom I was talking to close the account, asked me if I wanted to close my checking account as well.  I told here that there were some outstanding transactions that hadn’t cleared yet but that, when they did, I would close that account.  To do that, I told Rachel that I’d call the bank’s customer service number, much as I’d done to get connected with her. Her response: “Awesome.”

So, I’ve two questions:

For the kid at the register: Since when is having change for a dollar awesome?

For Rachel at Wells Fargo: Why do you think that my dissatisfaction with and desire to stop doing business with your company is awesome?

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The value of a good editor

In the mid-1980s, when I worked for Mattel, I got a bug up my ass about including an article by a celebrity writer in my quarterly magazine, which went to employees, investors, key customers, partners, suppliers and other audiences. At first, I reached out to Erma Bombeck; I just loved the idea of her writing about vacuuming up Barbie shoes. She was too busy, according to her agent, so I next tried Ray Bradbury. Bradbury was a big fan of the company, having taken a tour several years earlier, and he agreed to do it.

The article Bradbury wrote was great. I was, however, surprised to find that it needed editing. But then I recalled what Ken Estes had told me. Ken, who had been my boss at my first communications job at ARCO, was one of the best editors I’ve ever known. He was a master of the red pen (actually just a plain No. 2 pencil). Ken’s markups could look daunting on your original copy, but damned if the resulting story, while vastly improved, didn’t still read just like my style of writing. I remarked on this to him once, and he replied, “There isn’t a writer alive who can’t benefit from editing.”

The value of a good editor also reminds me that Thomas Wolfe‘s novel, “Look Homeward, Angel”—one of my favorites as a youth—is one-quarter the length of the the original manuscript, thanks to the brilliant editing job by Maxwell Perkins.

When I hear predictions of mainstream media’s demise, it is the notion that everything written by anybody will be published without benefit of editing that disturbs me the most. It’s not that I’m opposed to consumer-generated media; nobody edits this blog. I read several blogs that are written by people who would never get hired as writers, but the quality of their ideas renders the poor writing tolerable.

So I remain a vocal advocate of social media and CGM. It’s just the idea that there won’t be any content that benefits from editing that depresses me. Until that is, I remember that it isn’t going to happen. CGM and mainstream media are going to co-exist. There may be less mainstream media (as evidenced by further rounds of layoffs at metropolitan newspapers), but it won’t go away. People will always want and need content that has been made more readable.

Reviewing some posts written about initial social media moves by my client, Encyclopaedia Britannica, raised the whole notion of edited vs. raw content in my mind. A number of bloggers reporting on the Webshare initiative called it “too little too late” and insisted that, in order to survive in the era of social computing, Britannica would have to move to a wiki model.

Most of the pro-Wikipedia/anti-Britannica screeds point to evidence (which is suspect anyway) that Wikipedia is as accurate as Britannica. But there’s more than accuracy involved in Britannica’s model. Readability is one of Britannica’s goals in having an editor review articles. That’s a big deal.

I’m a Wikipedia fan. I can’t remember the last time I went an entire day without using Wikipedia. However, I have frequently found myself re-reading articles multiple times trying to comprehend them. The Wikipedia model—community editing—is based on Jimmy Wales’ concept of “neutrality” (explained elegantly by David Weinberger in his brilliant book, “Everything is Miscellaneous”). People with diverging views on a subject engaged in tweaking a Wikipedia article can reach a point where they’re satisifed with it and make no more changes. When nobody revises the article further, it has achieved neutrality.

But neutrality and readability are two vastly different things; neutrality doesn’t make an article inherently understandable. That’s what an editor does.

I was discussing this with a friend who pointed me to an article appearing in The Chronicle of Higher Education written by Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University. “I can tell when my students have consulted Wikipedia when writing their papers,” he writes. “Sentences lose their singularity, transitions go flat, diction pales. The discourse sounds like information issuing from a neutral platform, not interpretation coming from an angle of vision.”

Bauerlein offers an example: Entries about Moby-Dick from Wikipedia, Colliers Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana, and Cliffs Notes. “Each one is more vibrant and entertaining than the Wikipedia entry. The information is no better, and Wikipedia is, indeed, a marvelous source for a quick date, fact, definition, event. But in style, most entries are deadening.”

Baurlein doesn’t come right out and say so, but the difference between Wikipedia and the other entries is that expert writers penned the entries for Colliers, Americana, and Cliffs, after which editors worked their magic. For Wikipedia, there is no requirement that authors be good writers, and no professional editor touches the copy.

As Bauerlein notes, Wikipedia has its place as a reference for information, and in particular for entries you can’t find in any other encyclopedia (like the Klingon language, for instance). But professionally produced encyclopedias also have their place and will survive—even thrive—nicely alongside Wikipedia. Ultimately the idea that Britannica must go the wiki route to survive is pure nonsense.