Apostrophes sort of resemble elusive, wriggly creatures, and in a sense, that’s what they are. Apostrophes often worm their way into plural nouns where they don’t belong, and the English language will always have writers who mix up your and you’re and its and it’s. But in the past two decades or so, apostrophes have a new trick. They’ve learned to flip themselves upside-down.

For example, take a look at the apostrophes in this movie poster…

…on this greeting card…

…and on this ironic T-shirt.

These three phrases indeed need apostrophes to signify that letters or numbers are omitted. Yet, the punctuation marks in these examples are not apostrophes. They are opening single quotation marks.

Microsoft Word is at fault for this state of affairs. The program has a feature called “smart quotes” which automatically creates curly quotation marks when it senses the user is writing a quotation. The problem is that the program cannot identify a word beginning with an apostrophe. When the user has smart quotes turned on, Word will instead render a curly single quotation mark, and only attentive, tech-savvy writers know to correct the program’s correction.

The problem has become so entrenched that many people aren’t sure how an apostrophe is supposed to look. Flipped apostrophes now show up in handwritten signs and on embroidered caps where Word’s autocorrect feature holds no dominion. Case in point: in 2005, the Baltimore Orioles came out with a logo marred by a flipped apostrophe.

As a Baltimore Sun writer notes, the Orioles haven’t had a winning season since 1997. She interviewed the ESPN blogger who publicized the Orioles’ mistake and asked him if he thought there was a connection. He said, “I do think the same management approach that results in lousy baseball can also lead to lousy grammar and lousy typography.”

Proponents of plain language assert that the jargon, legalese and general unintelligibility of government documents are part and parcel of the bureaucratic red tape that everyone finds frustrating. A group called the Center for Plain Language encapsulates the movement’s populist mission with its motto, “Plain language is a civil right.”

At a time when revving up the economy is a top political priority, businesses large and small suffer when they can’t figure out how to comply with regulations. Confusion frequently forces them to purchase “translation” services from lawyers and accountants. On the other side of the fence, government agencies waste resources trying to explain policies to citizens and businesses that online and print documents could do on their behalf if the writing were comprehensible.

Why is government writing so poor? One reason is because government workers in specific areas naturally develop jargon for professional use (as do specialists in many fields). This jargon is not decoded for the public. Also, when the civil servants who draft documents add in special-interest exceptions, CYA-digressions, and voluminous reams of legalese, concision is obliterated.

Fundamentally, writing clearly and concisely takes effort; it isn’t easy. The federal government is trying to deal with the problem. It recently published a set of plain language guidelines, which were created to support the Plain Writing Act, passed in 2010. The act requires federal agencies to write all new publications intended for the public in a “clear, concise, well-organized” manner. Now working its way through Congress, another bill called the Plain Regulations Act of 2012 will strengthen plain language requirements. Nevertheless, any citizen without legal training trying to read either of these acts (PDFs here and here) will find them quite difficult to understand.

Since 2006, more than 800 new products have included the word on their packages, according to Datamonitor, a market research company that tracks such things. Granted, food companies routinely latch onto trendy words. “Organic” has been a major one in modern times, but at least organic products must meet certain standards to make that claim. Not so with artisan. Marketers simply stick the term on a package when they wish to signify that the product is higher quality than its mainstream counterpart and (it goes without saying) more expensive.

Starbucks stocks so-called artisan breakfast sandwiches, Tostitos hawks an artisan line of chips, and Fanny May offers artisan chocolates. Even Domino’s Pizza sells artisan pizzas, notwithstanding that Domino’s is basically a form of fast food and fast food is the opposite of artisanal.

Domino’s at least seems a little embarrassed about its claim. The box for this pizza announces, “We’re not artisans,” in an old-timey font, and the copy begins, “We don’t wear black berets, cook with wood-fired ovens or apprentice with the masters in Italy.” Even so, the writing goes on to assert that the pizza in the box still deserves the artisan label. Domino’s basically wants to have its pizza and eat it too. Admitting that it’s incongruous to call assembly-line food the work of artisans doesn’t excuse the claim from being absurd.

The following first lines are lifted from term papers found online (for sale at only $14.95 each!):

• In today’s society things are being expressed and experienced at younger ages, than ever before in our time.
• In today’s society, women and man [sic] compete on somewhat of the same level.
• In today’s world, the modern person is educated, independent and aggressive.
• Deforestation is a major concern in today’s society.

And so on. As with many other clichés, there’s nothing ungrammatical about the phrase “In today’s society….” It’s simply unoriginal and doesn’t draw in the reader. It doesn’t inform. It’s filler.

Meanwhile, here’s a sampling of first lines found in major companies’ online marketing materials:

• In today’s fast-paced retail economy, customers can gain access to the same products from many sources. (From SAP)
• In today’s competitive business environment, effectively managing the workforce has become a mission-critical objective. (From Oracle)
• In today’s competitive business environment, enterprise companies need to remain focused on an area of expertise. (From Sprint)
• In today’s increasingly complex and interconnected world, risks are real and increasing exponentially. (From IBM)

It appears that the students who used to write “In today’s society…” for their teachers now write “In today’s competitive business environment…” for their employers.

But if today’s business environment really is so fast paced and competitive, these companies shouldn’t expect people to waste time slogging through the same uninspired phrases that appear everywhere. They risk losing prospects’ attention at the very first sentence of the sales process.

Panos Ipeirotis, a computer scientist and NYU business school professor, conducted a technical inquiry into user-submitted reviews on the travel websites TripAdvisor and Travelocity. He found that “demand for a hotel increases if the reviews are well-written, without spelling errors; this holds no matter if the review is positive or negative.”

At a conference, Ipeirotis learned that the online shoe store Zappos had already caught on to the benefits of supporting its products with reviews that conform to correct English. Since at least April 2009, the company has used a crowdsourcing platform to spruce up millions of user reviews. The content of the reviews have been kept intact, just the mistakes corrected. Paying about a dime for each stage of a “find-fix-verify” correction process, Zappos has likely spent up to $500,000 on the effort since it began. Ipeirotis learned that the benefits to sales were “substantial”; almost certainly they were much more than the half-million dollar cost.

Why would better-written reviews promote more sales? One probable answer is that people associate good writing with thoughtfulness and expertise. It engenders trust. Even well-written negative reviews support criticisms with evidence and reasoning, thereby allowing shoppers to make educated decisions for themselves. It seems that in the anything-goes online world, writing standards are actually more important than ever.

• Odd syntax and grammatical mistakes

• Nonsensical or head-scratching messages

• Incorrect or confusing math

Although The Awkward Adverb got a good laugh from these signs, we aren’t here to make fun of them (or not only to make fun of them). As advocates of good communication, we must also honestly ask whether the signs’ poor quality really matters.These signs were put up to boost sales. Do they succeed despite their mistakes?

We would argue that they actually harm sales. Most shoppers, when confronted with a sign saying “Yucky Germs?”, would choose not to buy that product. Even without the possibility of infection, these signs leave shoppers puzzled, and confusing marketing messages do not tend to encourage purchases.

How do these signs impact the Walgreens brand? They generate concern from the top. When we wrote an e-mail asking for comment to customer service through the Walgreens website, we were surprised to get a personal call early the next morning from someone pressing for details. However, we declined to provide any and didn’t pursue the matter further. In a world of airtight, top-down branding, we preferred to let this store’s individual quirks fly under the radar.

Contribute Your Comments

Do you think signs like these hurt a store’s sales?

When you read marketing materials, you find that many companies claim to be “leading providers” of something or other. This phrase spans all industries. Here’s a quick sampling gathered from the Internet:

• “MetLife is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to millions of individual and institutional customers.”
• “Targus Group – Leading Provider of Laptop Cases, Bags and Accessories”
• “DaVita, Inc., a Fortune 500 company, is a leading provider of kidney care in the United States.”

Most often companies claim to be a leading provider, not the leading provider. After all, a company purporting to be the leading provider of a market would need to support the assertion with factual data, such as the highest sales numbers.

Even true leaders seem to trot out this lazy claim without a second thought. There are 24 million Google results for “leading provider.” With all those leaders, who’s following?

More importantly, do consumers ever respond do this stuffy wording? Does anyone consciously or unconsciously gravitate to the products or services of self-appointed leading providers? It’s not likely.

In the first example, if MetLife were looking for a quick solution for getting around the phrase, it could replace “is a leading provider of” with the word “provides” all by itself:

• “MetLife provides insurance and other financial services to millions of individual and institutional customers.”

By making the change, the company would:

• Replace a weak linking verb (“is”) with a strong active verb (“provides”)
• Improve concision by eliminating four words
• Avoid tired phrasing that doesn’t resonate
• Communicate more directly

Now that sounds more like a leader.

Ordinary consumers with no conflicts of interest supposedly author reviews, but sometimes companies plant glowing fake reviews among legitimate ones. It can be hard to spot the fakes, especially when casually browsing. But certain characteristics can help identify them, and writing styles offer a number of clues:

• Too effusive – “This coffee maker is the best thing ever invented! I would buy it again and again, and I recommend it to everyone alive!”
• Too specific – “Acme’s aerodynamic coffee drip mechanism creates the ideal brewing environment for beans prepared with Acme’s 345G coffee grinding system.”
• Horrible, irrelevant writing (so five stars can be given) – “i luv coffee & this coffee maker makes the best coffeee in da wurld LOL!!!!”
• Marketing-speak – “This coffee maker is GENIUS! No more moving, disconnecting cables, and spilling out water and coffee. I love waking up in the morning and finding a perfectly hot cup of coffee thanks to the programmable timer. I RECOMMEND THIS LOVELY PRODUCT!”

Why so much about coffee? Well, the last example is actually a “real” fake review posted on Amazon by someone working for the company DeLonghi. Other well-known companies caught in the fake review game include Belkin and Carbonite, not to mention many smaller firms.

With care, the writing could be finessed to avoid detection. On the other the hand, companies could redirect efforts into running marketing campaigns that don’t involve deception.

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Results-oriented
4. Proven track record
5. Team player
6. Fast-paced
7. Problem solver
8. Entrepreneurial

Is there a problem with using these buzzwords? If everyone professes to be “innovative” and “motivated,” the terms lose their impact. People combing through profiles will gloss over excessively used phrases while seeking traits that stand out from the pack.

The worth of these words can be rescued often if they’re followed by evidence that shows they’re not empty placeholders. “Problem solvers” could point to problems they have solved, and the “results-oriented” could discuss results achieved.

So on behalf of all the motivated and results-oriented team players out there with extensive entrepreneurial experience and proven track records, let’s be innovative problem solvers in this dynamic and fast-paced world.

(Just seeing if I could fit them all into one sentence.)

As a manufacturer of fighter jets and missiles, Lockheed has sizable contracts with the U.S. military. So does it consider the Pentagon to be the principal entity to please? Or perhaps Lockheed believes it’s working for the American public in general? Company shareholders, maybe? The slogan raises a question it doesn’t answer. Lockheed’s management may know the company’s priorities, but the rest of us are left in the dark.

And the slogan raises a disturbing possibility. Does Lockheed have a habit of forgetting who ordered its products? We certainly hope not. We wouldn’t want the company to forget that it was the United States who commissioned that F-16, and not Iran or North Korea.

Lastly, the slogan’s grammar is incorrect. The ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition issue is no big deal, but the slogan should be “We never forget whom we’re working for.” Granted, many consider the use of whom too stuffy for everyday English, but Lockheed isn’t going after a happy-hour crowd. The company manufactures dangerous products that demand precision. Since the slogan doesn’t reflect care in either meaning or mechanics, it should have been left on the drawing board.

Contribute Your Comments

Are there any slogans you think are badly written? What are they?