Monthly Archives: June 2011

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parislemon:

I’ve always hated the use of the word “exclusive” in titles. From what I see, 99% of the time the usage boils down to one of three things:

1) The author sucks at writing actual titles.

2) The author wants their story to appear much more important than it actually is. (“It says ‘exclusive’ so it must be important!”)

3) The author is an asshat who wants to make themselves appear more important that they actually are.

And then there’s the “exclusive” that Mashable published today. A new low. While running an infographic that no one else is likely to run is technically an “exclusive”, so is, say, posting a picture of your slap bracelet collection. The usage of the term in this headline is more along the lines of “sad”.

If your story is filled with good, exclusive information, it should speak for itself. Or maybe you shouldn’t be a writer. 

Annoyances with the language in British Advertising

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There is a lot to deal with when one moves to a new country. Languages, accents and colloquialisms take some time to get used to, even when moving to another English speaking country. Moving to the US 10 years ago, I did have to make adjustments in the way I spoke and in the way I understood what others said to me. One of the biggest adjustments was the “wassup” adjustment. Took me a long time to realize that it was a greeting and not a question, and that I didn’t need to respond with a full answer. It’s similar to the “you alright?” or “alright?” greeting in the UK (or is this London only?). 

It’s taken me a lot less time to make similar adjustments in the UK, however.  But I just don’t get British advertising and the confusing (and annoying) language it uses. I’m sitting in an East Coast train on the way to Edinburgh right now, and across from me is a sign for their new first class service. The last sentence goes: it’s extra special and we haven’t put the prices up. 

“Put the prices up”?? Do they mean they haven’t raised prices or they haven’t displayed them? 

The other day, I was surfing the Sky website, wondering if I were to get Sky TV what kind of package I’d get. A little sign at the bottom of the page said something like “get £5 off when you also take a Sky phone line rental for £11.99”. (The amounts here aren’t accurate.) A phone line is a service that I purchase. And even if it was a physical product and not a service, I don’t “take” it. I pay a monthly fee for the next 12 (or maybe even 24) months for a service that I sign up for, I don’t just “take” it. What I do “take” is an extra helping of mushrooms or another slice of toast. Not a phone line service that I’m renting and signing a contract for. 

Ok, rant of the day done.

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B-schools and MBAs have been on my mind a lot lately. I wanted to see what Google would throw up if I searched for the terms “stammering mba” (without the quotes). The top results were forums where people who stammer asking if it will prove a hinderance in “clearing” the MBA. Most of the for questions seemed to be from Indians. The result that made me cringe the most was: 

Can ppl vid stammering prob can do mba..?? do company hire them …

The response that showed through on the Google search page was: u cn do it bt companies vl hire u only for operations…dont go fr marketing

Ah…well, if anything prevents a stammerer from being successful it is typing “vid” when one means “with” or “vl” when one means “will”. That’s not acceptable even on Twitter