Posted by Jon on 12 March, 2007 under Word play & writing | 
I’m working on a new handbook for a proposal team at the moment, capturing best practices for each stage of the proposal process.
I forwarded it to the agency who we’ve engaged to convert my own (eminently respectable!) Word pages into a wonderful, professional-looking designer document. Lo and behold, a note popped into my inbox a few moments later:
“The following note has been added by IT Support
We operate a piece of software that scans outgoing emails against a list of profanities (undesirable words). The message you sent;
Subject: Process handbook
Has been found to contain a word (or words) on that list.
Because bona fide business email may contain the occasional profanity, your message has been sent to the intended recipients.”
Try as I may, I can’t find anything rude in the document. But I am rather amused by the fact that the IT folks believe that the occasional profanity is acceptable in the proposal world!
Posted by BJ on 8 March, 2007 under Word play & writing |
From a news report in my local paper.
“The suspect was found hiding under a residence by a state police K-9 (dog) unit. When he refused to surrender he was snuffed out by the police dog.”
And from the same report – police charged him with “theft by unauthorized taking”.
As opposed to what other kind of theft? Perhaps convincing the item to come along of its own free will? “Honest officer. I didn’t take it, it followed me home.”
Posted by Jon on 6 March, 2007 under Word play & writing |
Sometimes it’s the silly things that bring light relief when working on proposals. Like last week, when a group of us came across the following word in a document:
“Persions”
What had they really meant? Persons? Pensions? Persians? Perversions, even?
My reason for sharing is that the error was contained within a web site address – and I’d never actually stopped to consider the now-obvious point that Word’s spell check doesn’t check words within URLs. Care needed! Not that anyone would send a proposal out without having it properly proofread, of course (?)
Later in the day, I read about a meeting needing a ‘quarum’ to make a decision. Either it was a typo, or it’s some little-known ancient post – a learned individual, clad in robes, appearing before the gathering to adjudicate: “All hail to the quarum, bringer of wisdom and of peace…”
And then there’s my favourite recent example of “newordology”. One of our associates was proofreading some proposal text recently. The exchange went something like this:
Proofreader: “You can’t use ‘geoscope’.”
Proposal team member: “Why on earth not?”
Proofreader: “Because it’s not in the dictionary.”
Proposal team member: “But it’s a really good way of explaining that we offer worldwide coverage”. “
Proofreader: “Yes, but it’s not a word.”
Proposal team member: “Well we like it. Leave it in anyway.”
Posted by BJ on 2 March, 2007 under Word play & writing |
There’s a commercial running in my area at the moment for a local furniture store. This commercial features the husband and wife who are the owners of this company (if you’re in the New England area, you’d recognize the names), rather than professional actors.
The dialogue in the commercial is as follows –
HUSBAND: Why do we sell more sofas than any other furniture store?
WIFE: We have the best quality at the best price.
Now, maybe it’s just me but I’m thinking there should be a “We sell the most sofas because…” in there some where. Without this, it feels like there is a disconnect between the question and answer. By adding this, the two are solidly and clearly linked.
I see the same thing in lots of proposal I review and in my opinion, adding these few words makes for a much stronger response.
