Posted by BJ on 2 March, 2010 under Word play & writing | 
I just love it when a typo creates a word which changes the meaning of a sentence in a humorous way and, as the saying goes, “You just can’t make this stuff up folks.”
In a recent AP article on the Westminster Dog Show being held this week in New York (at Madison Square Garden, should you care to know or go.) I spotted this delightful typo:
She is a hot dog, this little Sadie. Tongue out, and wagging tail up, the perky, 4-year old Scottish terrier has won more than 100 Best-in-Show ribbons and is the overwhelping favorite to complete dogdom’s Triple Crown this week at Westminster. She’s already charmed the judges, in fact. (Yeah, and her overwhelping would suggest she has charmed her fair share of male dogs as well.)
Someone I shared this with suggested the typo could have also been “overyelping”. That would have been fun too.
Posted by BJ on 14 January, 2010 under Word play & writing |
A book I turn to time and again as a reference is “Error Free Writing” (R. Cormier, Prentice Hall), which unfortunately, has been out of print for some time. While checking on an particular point of editing, I came across the following excerpt from The Editorial Eye. I think it does a great job of driving home the need for “plain language”.
As the story goes, a New York City plumber once wrote to the Bureau of Standards to report the success he had in using hydrochloric acid to clean out clogged drainpipes. Responding in typical government fashion, the bureau wrote, “The efficacy of hydrochloric acid is indisputable, but the corrosive residue is incompatible with metallic permanence.”
When the plumber wrote back to say how pleased he was that the bureau agreed with him, the bureau urgently responded, “We cannot assume responsibility for the production of toxic and noxious residue as a result of using hydrochloric acid and suggest you use an alternative procedure.”
This second letter made the plumber even happier with his discovery, so once again he wrote to say how glad he was that the bureau liked his idea. This time the bureau broke down and used plain language to warn the plumber: “Don’t use hydrochloric acid. It eats the hell out of the pipes.”
Plain language. A novel concept. Goes a long way towards fostering understanding.
Posted by Jon and BJ on 21 December, 2009 under Proposal Guys news, Proposal Panda, Word play & writing |
You know, it’s a very small step from “Impossible” to “I’m possible“. Here’s wishing you every happiness for the festive season, and hoping that you achieve every “possible” success in 2010.
We’ll be taking a seasonal break from posting for the next couple of weeks. See you back here at the very start of the new decade…
With very best wishes to all of our many readers
Jon and BJ – and Proposal Panda!
Posted by BJ on 16 December, 2009 under Word play & writing |
Or more precisely, this book is narrated by a dog, and a very philosophical dog at that.*
The book I’m referring to is, The Art of Racing in the Rain (author – Garth Stein) and I give it my highest recommendation (something I reserve for a rare few books, such as Water for Elephants, another brilliant read and one I also recommend.)
I suspect leading with the fact that the story is told by a dog might cause some people to be reluctant to read this wonderful book. In fact, I’m sure it is. If I wasn’t confident that the majority of readers of this blog trust me to provide recommendations they ultimately agree with (for the most part), I might have presented this book differently (it’s about knowing your audience, right?). I could have said, “This is a beautifully told and written story of family, love, devotion, caring, loss and ultimate triumph.”
You are forewarned; do not read the first page unless you have several hours of reading time available. :-)
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* See, as a dog lover I am biased. And several people to whom I’ve recommended this book and who have subsequently read it have found it to be a great read.
Posted by BJ on 27 October, 2009 under Word play & writing |
I received a mail from someone recently thanking me for my having reviewed and offered comment on his APMP Practitioner Accreditation Questionnaire.
This individual said that my comments and suggested changes had been very helpful and that when incorporated, had resulted in a much stronger questionnaire.
The person finished by thanking me for, “…imbibing confidence in me.”
Though I hadn’t suggested that the questionnaire needed so much work this individual should consider turning to the bottle, I guess that’s one way to get confidence. ☺
According to www.dictionary.com:
im-bibe (verb, bibed, -bibing)
1. to consume liquids by drinking, to drink. He imbibed great quantities of alcohol.
2. to absorb or soak up, as water, light or heat. Plants imbibe moisture from the soil.
3. to make or receive into the mind, as knowledge. She imbibed the beautiful scenery.
Posted by Jon on 19 October, 2009 under Word play & writing |
I was working recently on a project with Graham Ablett (one of our fellow Directors in Strategic Proposals) on a project to edit and sharpen a client’s pre-written proposal content. A few of the lines in the raw material provided to us were particularly bizarre.
- “The core list of products in PRICING represents WHATEVER IT REPRESENTS and is not a comprehensive list of products.” (What???)
- “During contract implementation, you will receive fluid communication from your business development manager.” (I don’t think I want to know any more!)
- If there’s a problem with deliveries, they’ll advise the relevant warehouse who will make certain “that the correct quantity of product is stored to ensure further disruption”. (Ensure??!!).
Still, I’m not immune from the occasional howler myself: when we printed off a batch of our work for review, I’d mentioned the client’s ‘manufucaturing’ site. That almost feels like an example of BJ’s newordology, for those moments when things go wrong in the factory…
Posted by BJ on 5 October, 2009 under Word play & writing |
Those of you who have attended an APMP Annual conference in the past couple of years will be familiar with the “Caption Contest” we have run as part of those events. (We’ve also written about and presented the results of the contest here on the blog.)
We occasionally run an internal caption contest here at Strategic Proposals, most often sparked by someone passing around a photo that just begs for a caption. We’re currently running such a contest, triggered by a photo of one of the team, Graham, taken while he was presenting at a conference. The photo shows Graham standing in front of a room, gesturing to a screen on his left. Jon covered the image on the screen in the photo with a white square and passed it around with the question, “What’s on the screen?”
This led to several of us submitting entries, some of us (okay, me) submitting several.
Here’s one of my entries:
(We’d show you others but as is often the case with such exercises, the entries include either “inside jokes” that wouldn’t make sense to those not on the team or are of a nature, as is also typical of such exercises, that it wouldn’t be appropriate to show them here.☺)
This one of many such exercises we do here at Strategic Proposals to keep the creative juices flowing and have some fun. We’d love to here what you and your team members do to foster creativity and have fun.
