Why my daughter should be a lawyer

Dr Seuss, now there's some inspiration for the cynical. Unless you're trying to read "Green Eggs and Ham" to an almost-three-year-old without going insane.

Me: "I am Sam... Sam I am."
Monkeyrina (pointing at the other character.) What's his name?
Me: He doesn't have a name.
Her: Why not?
Me: It's not important to the story.
Her: Why not?
Me: Well, it doesn't really come up. I call him Grumpy Grouch.
Her: Why?
Me: Because he's grumpy.
Her: Why is he grumpy?
Me: Let's read it and find out? "That Sam-I-am. That Sam-I-am! I do not like that Sam-I-am!"
Her: Why not?
Me: Because he's annoying. He keeps trying to make him eat green eggs and ham.
Her: Why?
Me: Because Sam-I-am thinks it's something nice to eat, and wants the Grumpy Grouch to eat it too.
Her: Why?
Me: Because when you eat something yummy, you want to share it with people. Let's get on with the story, shall we? "Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like-"
Her: Is that his fat tummy?
Me: He's not very fat. He's more furry.
Her: Why? Is he an animal?
Me: No, well, not really. He's just a pretend person.
Her: Why is he furry if he's a person?
Me: (regretting mentioning the fur): It's his clothes. He's wearing a furry suit.
Her: Why is he wearing a furry suit?
Me: Come on, now. We've only read 3 pages and there are lots more to go.
Her: What's that in the ham?
Me: It's a fork to eat it with.
Her: Why?
Me: So they can eat the green eggs and ham. "I do not like green eggs and-"
Her: Why's it in the ham?
Me: (slightly hysterical) So it doesn't fall out. They're moving around a lot and they don't want to lose it. "Would you like them here or there? I would not like them here or there. I would not like them-"
Her: "ANYWHERE! I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-aAm."
Me: (relieved): "Would you like them in a house? Would you like them with a mouse?"
Her: 'Mouse' and 'house' are very similar, aren't they?
Me: (impressed she knows the word 'similar'): Yes, they rhyme.
Her: Why? Why do they mime?
Me: They rhyme. They sound nice together.
Her: Why?
Me: (glancing at my watch): Because rhymes do. "I do not like them in a house, I do not like them-"
Her: Why's he furry?
Me: I told you. He's wearing a furry suit. Come on, now. "-with a mouse. I do not-"
Her: It looks like 'The Cat in the Hat', doesn't it, mummy?
Me: Yes. It's by the same person. Dr Seuss.
Her: Why is it by Dr Who?
Me: Not Dr Who. Dr Seuss. Those words sound similar too, don't they? (Desperately skipping several lines) "Would you eat them in a box?"
Her: Why's the box hanging in a tree?
Me: (Starting to giggle hysterically) Because it is! Because it is! Because that's what's in the picture!
Her: Why are you laughing, mummy?
Me: Because you won't let me read the book!
Her: Why won't I?
Me: Because you keep asking why!
Her: (with a smirk): Why?

My advice to government: use a toddler to interrogate suspects. They'd be broken in less than 10 minutes.

It's not just me...

You might say this is a lazy post, and I might agree with you, but David Mitchell says it so well. Although technically he's not just talking about standards of spelling.

Why I should have been a lawyer

I'm going to go off on a tangent before I've even established a straight line, but time spent trying to get the hang of Twitter does make you want to luxuriously expand into the endless space of the Blogger edit box. I went into the bank to sign up for a business account but rather than HSBC holding open their welcoming arms for me to run giggling into, they took some notes, made me play telephone pingpong with their business advisor and then made me commit to spending my lunch hour next week driving into town to meet her for what will probably be a sales chat. And it won't be me selling to her. Although that nicely brings me back to my straight line.

When the cashier noted the nature of my business, she wrote that I was planning to be a "copyrighter". The point at which I realised that publishing is the realm of the underpaid, the under-appreciated and the over-educated happened to coincide with the point at which I realised that my college peers with their law conversions were wisely trying to eliminate the underpaid aspect of their careers. I like the sound of being a copyrighter - "Do you have permission to plagiarise that hackneyed old quote, Mr Higginbottom? Dd you even bother to give it a little creative spin? I thought not. Copyright application dismissed!"

Most people just don't know what copywriting and copy editing are. And worse, most people think they know. It's not law - there are no years of intense study or overuse of technical jargon... oh, hang on. There are. It must be complicated because my conversations with my mother go like this:

[In the interests of family unity, I've self-censored my paraphrase of a typical phonecall with my mother. Which is a pity, because it was funny. Let's just say that she is concerned that copy editing is not a good use of my education and intelligence. And that her friends all look blank when she tells them how I'll be earning a living. And then casually adds that her friends' kids are all high powered lawyers. Probably dealing with copyright cases.]

Well, she's right. Not about copy editing wasting my talents, obviously - as we all know, clear communications will save the world, and even I would forgive a misplaced comma in return for universal peace. But people still won't know what it means, or what it's for, or why it's needed. Just look at my redundant publishing team, all trained up and no place to edit.

Demonstrating the value - and complexity - of written communications is hard in this age of txt spk and hash tags. The nature of quality can be argued forever, but when it comes down to it, clear, accurate prose in books, on the web, on the back of smoothie Tetrapaks (love that Innocent brand identity) will not only save the world but also, more importantly for small businesses, will convert into sales and maintain and even enhance their reputation. And that's a great way to earn a living.

Apart from the being underpaid, under-appreciated and over-educated part, of course.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we edit

A cafe in town has been refurbished. Its vulgar lighting, hard chairs and clinical green decor have been transformed into a softly lit maroon-and-buttermilk oasis dotted with curvaceous sofas. It looks like my sort of place. But what is this? A sign etched across the window reads:

Salads and sandwiches made fresh

What a revolutionary idea! Bring your droopy lettuce and mouldering sarnies and they too will be refurbished - look, good as new!

Oh, do you think they just mean "Freshly made salads and sandwiches"? How disappointing.

Will the error directly affect their income? Will potential customers think, "I don't drink coffee in cafes with ungrammatical signage"? Unlikely. But, actually, ambiguous advertising can provoke detrimental responses. If they can't clearly describe what they do, can they really do it? If their attention to detail is lacking, what else have they forgotten? Well, who am I to criticise? It is easily done - dashing off a blog late at night, my own attention to detail isn't what it could be (as you rightly point out, Andrew, and I do appreciate it!) and I'm an editor. Cafes should get on with what they're good at, whether it's making fresh food or making food fresh, but all businesses need to be aware of the impact on their reputation - and possible impact on their profits - if they get it wrong.

So today's inspiration? That there is a place in the world for us poor underrated editors. To check your work before making it public [Julia gives her post a second read-through]. Oh, and to invent a food freshener, if that cafe hasn't done so already.

Taking on a silent role

Work is strange when your role is redundant and you're biding your time. It’s a little like being in a play.

Scene 1: a group of managers is meeting to discuss strategy. Enter Redundant Manager One. This is a silent role. The discussion continues.

In some ways, it’s liberating. Management information? Delete! Business plans? Delete! Any email headed “Implementation plan”? Transfer to the junk folder. Remove my name from all circulation lists because soon I won’t be here.

But when won’t I be here? That uncertainty is not liberating at all. There are procedures and negotiations and consultations. There are handovers and meetings and occasional communications. There is gossip and sadness and hollow emptiness. Everyone likes to feel useful, to have a place in the world, to make a contribution, and to suddenly have no contribution to make – or at least to have a contribution that is not required or appreciated – well, it’s a little demoralising.

But we’re here for inspiration, are we not? We must rouse ourselves and swim down the river before we are dragged beneath its choppy waters and make our mascara run and our artfully blowdried hair go flat.

And so, into our institutionalised corporate lives comes some exciting news – one corner of the canteen is becoming a Costa coffee bar and the site shop will close for a few days and reopen as a Londis. (What else can be privatised? Desks, sponsored by Ikea. Loos, sponsored by DynoRod.) This really does count as exciting on a campus where Explorer 6 is cutting edge technology. A sign on the shop door explains that stock will be temporarily relocated and ends:

“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused”

And here, from this awkwardly phrased statement, came my inspiration for the day. Attempts to sound official rarely communicate any more clearly than if the writer had just expressed it as they would say it. Do we need all these words? (Don't answer that, reader.) If I had the job of writing the sign, how would I have expressed it? My critic’s mind clicked into position and off it went:

• "We sincerely and unreservedly extend our apologies for any inconvenience that our actions might cause, directly or indirectly, to you or your associates at any time, either at the present time or at an as-yet unspecified future point."
• “Sorry about this.”
• "We apologise if you don't like these changes. We're not too keen on them either but sometimes you just have to put up or shut up."

So many apologies, so much to be sorry for. Is it an empty, automatic stock phrase or are companies so afraid of their customers that they have to make excuses for improvements to their service?

• "Why should we apologise for bringing you filtered coffee and a proper newsagent?" 

But, on the other hand, acknowledging potential difficulties is strong reputation management. But some methods are better than others. There's really only one solution:

• "We're sorry if you find these changes inconvenient, but we're confident that our great new facilities will make up for it."

Which takes me back to the start. 

Scene 2: Redundant Manager One is in a meeting with Big Boss.

Big Boss: We're sorry if you find these changes inconvenient, but we're confident that our great new structure will more than make up for it.

Redundant Manager One remains silent. She has a lot to say.

Editing: a quiet revolution

I told my brother about this blog today. He responded:
I debated about which of my email favourite folders to keep the link in and decided against 'Rovers', 'Roleplaying', 'Buying', 'Jobs' or 'Other' and in the end felt that it could only really fit into 'Art'.
Which I'll take as an endorsement. Of course, if he became a follower (hint, dear reader) then he wouldn't need to bookmark it at all. Blogging As Art will be the subject of a future post (I bet you'll be lying awake waiting for that one) but today my thoughts run less to writing and more to editing.

If there's one editorial error that makes me suck in my breath through gritted teeth (and, let's face it, there isn't one; there are thousands), it's this:-

Aha, you were waiting for some text then, weren't you? But it really was this:-

Or, more frequently, this :-

It's the dog's bollocks. Which these days means something positive but (apparently) typesetters coined the phrase to describe such a wanton misuse of punctuation. I have no idea if this story is true but, oh, I do hope so - what a fine description it is. Although the family-friendly description, half a smiley, is almost as evocative.

People seem to be afraid of the poor wide-eyed colon, teaming it up with hyphens or (equally horrifyingly) replacing it with the lewd winking semi-colon, as if to draw attention to its ugliness, its innate wrongness.

Am I a petty pedant? Of course. Does it really matter? Of course. Am I shouting into a void? Of course. My organisation has decided that publishing services are dispensible in a forward-thinking, streamlined (cash-strapped) non-departmental public body. After all, anyone can proofread. All you need is a dictionary and Track Changes enabled in Word. Who cares whether you use a semi-colon to introduce a bullet list? It's just punctuation, right? Surely forward-thinking, streamlined (cash-strapped) NDPBs have better things to do than ensure their communications are clear, consistent, forward-thinking and, er, streamlined... right?

It's always seemed to me that a sign of good editing is its invisibility. 99% of errors may have been picked up, and nobody notices, but that tiny overlooked typo is the one that makes the reader question the authority of the text. Perhaps it's due to the proliferation of blogs like this one - even I don't proofread my own copy very thoroughly, and have to edit my posts later for those embarrassing misspellings (mispellings? mis-spellings?) that I've left behind. But, to an extent, that's fine - this is an informal medium and some level of flexibility is acceptable. But in a health and safety manual, that additional zero might cause a death. In an exam paper, that ambiguous question might rob a student of their profession. That grammatical error in a direct mail leaflet might stop a potential customer from parting with their cash. The editor smooths the way for the reader, quietly removes the thorns that might prick them. It's silent work, and us editors are self-effacing types on the whole, and that's our downfall. Without us, perhaps the text works. But does it live? Does it dream? Does it fly?


Editing. It's the dog's bollocks.

Business planning for beginners

I'd pay my taxes for Business Link and the NHS alone. Unfortunately, both are shortly to be massacred in the public services cuts, but this isn't a political blog and I don't want to make any more enemies that I need to so I won't continue down that route. I've just come back from a Business Link business planning course - 6 hours of valuable advice for no direct cost at all (direct costs - you can see I was paying attention to the financial forecasting section). I am almost sufficiently inspired to stop entering competitions and get down to writing my business plan, to take my leap seriously and start swimming down the river instead of floating amongst the debris.

I admit that I'm wary of finance. I'd rather devise a brand and sign up to Twitter than compile profit and loss sheets - but if that's what it takes, I shall do it and so it willingly. I'm an advocate for admin and processes (or a bit geeky, as some people call it) so, once the numerical mists have cleared, I will no doubt channel my inner accountant and calculate my forecast net profit to the nearest penny. And I have a tax workshop at HMRC next week - happy days!

The best part of attending a course, though, even better than the free coffee and homemade cake, is meeting other delegates. Today they ranged from a florist to landscape gardeners to a funky designer to a man who wants to use horses for logging. Disparate businesses with a common goal - to make a go of it, to trust in ourselves to do what we want to do. Given that the government want to encourage enterprise (and what a meaningless term that is), it's odd that the funding to encourage us should be cut, forcing us online without the benefit of networking. Oops, I'm getting political again.

A final, and slightly depressing point. The course was good but the PowerPoint slides and handouts were badly produced. Poor punctuation, strange formatting, random capitalisation, all the usual things that I am convinced obstruct communication but, in reality, most people don't seem to notice. We were encouraged to research the market, not to make assumptions about what customers want - but what if they don't care about clear copy and consistent use of language? What if other businesses and their clients are quite happy to accept sub-standard communications that I feel undermine their message? How do I promote the benefits of my service to people who don't feel the benefits are worthwhile? Perhaps it's the case for every business - market yourself, push your USP - but in my field it seems to be particularly difficult to sell yourself.