RIP simplicity

by Marelise Van der Merwe

I’m an editor. A professional nit-picker, really. Falling into PR happened sort of by accident, partly because journalism often involved being harsh about people – which I was squeamish about – and partly because, like AA Milne’s Rabbit, I believe that “it’s always useful to know where a friend-and-relation is, whether you want him or whether you don’t.” The love of networking, combined with my writing compulsion, led me here.

Certainly the biggest reason I will never be able to leave the media industry is my lifelong and ill-fated love affair with language. Lifelong, because I can’t help myself; ill-fated, because the health of the English language is terminal. I’m no purist – I believe language is organic and, like living things everywhere, it needs to adapt or it will die. But there are limits, too. (For example, I’m not sure which bright spark decided, when using Mxit, that an absence of vowels would be feasible in any non-Serbian language.)

Sadly, however, with electronic communication growing this fast and self-publishing becoming this easy, editing is losing its punch. Too many people can wrestle the rules of grammar. And grammar is losing, more certainly than Tinkerbell in a Smackdown ring with Mick Foley.

It’s not that I expect everyone to be on the same page as me. I am an extremist, as any editor should be. And although I’m going to spend the next 600-odd words defending the honour of the language I love, I realise not every person feels physical pain when they see apostrophes used in plurals. I know not everyone would climb up a pole to correct the spelling on a signpost (I was young, ok?). And I know not everyone cares enough about comma placement to laugh at this cartoon:

But – and here comes the big but – you don’t have to be an extremist to see the value of good grammar. For our world to run efficiently, the right people have to get the right messages at the right time. That’s true whether you’re the presidential spokesperson or a traffic cop warning motorists to keep out of a closed lane.

But it’s especially true for those of us working in media. Whatever else we’re willing to let slide, we have to care about clarity. Those who play fast and loose with spelling and grammar are generally fond of saying “It doesn’t matter as long as I’m understood.” But if you don’t apply the most basic rules of language, you won’t be understood. That’s why the rules are there.

In media, any kind of media, your job is communication. And the way you appear in your writing – like any first impression – should be professional. You wouldn’t turn up at a business meeting in a cardigan with egg on it, so why would you send out an email or press release that maid know senze?

It’s never, ever your reader’s job to decode your message for you. You’re providing a service, which means you should be making it clear for them. When I was a journalist, I met many PR agents who thought what they lacked in writing ability they could make up in exclamation marks. But I’ll give you one guess whether they were right – and whether I bothered to read to the end of their messages.

Unfortunately, clarity is a dying art. A lot of communicators fall into one of two traps: either not to try at all and to come off as semi-literate, with spelling and punctuation errors everywhere; or to try so hard that they call their spade an oblong-ended hand-held shovelling implement commonly used by bipedal anthropoids in horticultural engagements. The result, either way, is gibberish.

It’s one thing to be creative. But start getting creative with the basics and you’re in trouble. The key to good communication is simplicity, whether it’s language or design. Apart from the beauty of brevity, you’re also a lot less likely to make mistakes in simple sentences. And if you don’t believe me, ask any sign-writer. I believe a good test of whether you’re communicating well is whether someone would understand your message travelling on a highway.

For example, check out this beauty of a road sign, spotted outside Tokyo:

“If horse obstacle your path, tootle horn melodiously.

“If human of foot obstacle your path, tootle horn with vigour and express by word of mouth, ‘Hi, hi!’

“Give big space to the festive dog that make sport in the roadway. Avoid entanglement of the dog with your wheelspokes.

“Go soothingly on the grease mud, as there lurk the skid devil.”

But South Africans are guilty, too. Even if it’s just in the design. I know, in the deepest part of myself, that when the local municipality paints this:

…they do not actually expect me to understand what to do in a life-or-death situation when I’m operating a three-ton killing machine at 120 km/h. (For the record, this sign does not mean “portly alien with chastity belt ahead”. It means “vehicles with dangerous loads only”.)

Moral of the story? “Lyrical” isn’t the same as “literate”. The rules are there for a reason, and the reason is to keep it simple.