ARTICULATED

I have done it. I have contributed to the devolution of business writing. I have denied culpability in this matter. I have pretended that rules don’t apply to me. I have defended my actions. I’ve even accepted money for it.

But I will no more. Today, I name the truth. And I commit to change.

1. I have contributed to the obesification of verbs.

I have turned verbs into adjectives and nouns just because I could, making the verbs all fat and weird and multi-syllabic and lawyer-like. I have “been impactful” when I could simply “impact.” I have “built strategic assessments” when all I really did was “assess.”

And my audience’s eyes glazed over … that is, if people read more than a word or two before going back to filing their nails or thinking about dinner.

Making big words out of small ones, nouns and adjectives out of verbs, doesn’t make me sound more professional or smarter. It makes me sound like I’m trying too hard. It renders what I have written uninteresting. And it insults my readers’ intelligence. No more.

2. I have destroyed the word “solutions.”

I have single-handedly destroyed the word “solutions.” I have used it without discretion in attempt to make products, particularly complicated tech products, clear and interesting. My attempts were successful only in beating the poor word into irrelevance.

I will cease and desist. I will write about products and offerings and things in plain ‘ole straightforward English. I will re-read what I have written, most certainly find more clichés, and strike them out, too. Readers will thank me for it.