So, I was at a networking event this morning and one of the attendees was a travel agent. She stood up and told us that she’s planning trips to Peru and Africa and that Africa is her specialty. She used to live there and, I quote,
“I know the language in Africa.”
…(clears throat) Now, I’m not a bad person and nor would I consider myself a snob, though I know a few people who would argue that, and I can’t help it if my right eye twitches involuntarily, just a little, every time someone says things like this. It doesn’t mean I’m judging them, but it does mean I’m mentally reconstructing their sentences into a form that is grammatically, socially, and literally correct.
Everyone in the room understood what she was trying to say, but that doesn’t make the statement any less inaccurate. Here’s a few things I’d like us all to review about Africa:
1) It is a continent
2) There are about 54 countries within it
3) An estimated 1500 languages are spoken on the continent that is Africa (According to Wikipedia.)
As a copywriter, these are the kinds of inconsistencies and falsities that I correct on a daily basis. Yes, it’s my job to correct such things when they are written, but I have no control over the way you speak. You’re on your own there, people.
So go forth, and for the love of all that is wonderful and wordy, speak good.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned since launching my copywriting business in 2007, it’s that continued education is key. There is so much to learn! And, as you would expect, not nearly enough time in a human life to even scratch the surface.
In order to increase the value of my work to my clients, becoming a better writer is a must. I’m not the best writer in the world (I’m okay confessing this), but I work my butt off to be better than I was yesterday.
This has required oodles and oodles of industry-specific and business-in-general reading. In an effort to assist others who seek to expand their skills and have more to offer their clients, I have compiled a list of some of the resources I have found indispensable.
Obviously there are many more relevant books than these, and I’m sure I’ll get to a few of those before it’s all said and done, but these are a solid start and I highly recommend them all.
If you know of any others that should be added to this list, please let me know. I would love to expand this list.
The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman
Marketing Your Services by Rick Crandall
A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger Von Oech
Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss
The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy
Legal Guide for Small Business by The American Bar Association
Words That Work by Frank Luntz
Social Media Marketing by Liana “Li” Evans
Dear WordPress Community,
I have just been exposed to a fantastic Web site, W3Schools, that has all kinds of tutorials and information for FREE! I’ve only just scratched the surface of one of their CSS tutorials (you really could become an expert through this site), and I wanted to share this with all of you, especially those of you who are interested in learning a little bit more about how to improve professional Web sites, or blogs and the like.
There’s a lot of info so be prepared to be slightly overwhelmed…and then dive in! I would love to hear from people who have implemented the stuff they’ve learned on W3Schools or who are just discovering the site as I have. Did you learn anything new? Did you already know it all? Do you work with W3Schools (if so, thank you!)?
Happy Web site developing!
Why do you have to press the SHIFT button and then the question mark to get a question mark? Surely the question mark is used more often than the backslash. I have no empirical evidence to prove this, but if most people use a keyboard the same way I do (to post on their blogs, cruise the Internet via Google, and compose) then it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever why the use of the question mark is a two step process unlike the period or the comma.
While writing an essay the night before it was due, in her frustration, my college roommate vented about having to press SHIFT before being able to get a question mark and asked the question above (with various expletives that I have omitted). I never really thought about it until then, and now, six years later, I think I have part of the answer to her question.
Because it was originally a tool used by the Army. The Internet was created in 1969 by a U.S. government agency called ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) to communicate with themselves. Very likely there was a lot of code writing involved, i.e. high usage of backslashes, dashes, and periods, and minimal usage of the question mark. (This is all a hypothesis, keep in mind, so if anyone has additional information to contribute that would be wonderful.)
It was only in 1990 that researchers realized they could use the Internet to connect a web of stored hypertext pages and make them accessible to people all over the world. Enter the World Wide Web (www). By the time this all came about, however, the keyboard was already created and the question mark, though used more often than the backslash, was already relegated to a second tier spot.
This rumination was forged in the mind of a copywriter.
