The words “style guide” may well bring back shiver-inducing memories of university, bizarre referencing guidelines and the endless horror of formatting restrictions, but in the workplace, a comprehensive and functional style guide can mean the difference between consistently engaging content and a mishmash of business jargon, clichés and errors.
We're excited to announce this month's winners of our Word Love competition. Thanks to everyone who has submitted their favourite word. Have you entered your word yet?
Dearest Mother, just a few lines to let you know how I am getting on hoping this finds you well… I dare say this is the last letter you will receive from me until the war is over, as I am prepared to move to the front at any moment… Mother dear, do not lose heart. I may come back again.
As we commemorate the centenary of World War 1, we reflect on the state of communication between then and now.
Yeah, yeah, Weird Al, Word Crimes. I know you’ve already seen it shared a million times. But this blog post isn’t about Weird Al, or about his supposed split infinitive error (don’t get me started). It’s about you.
It's our pleasure to welcome Alex Stevenson to the Rocksalt Copy Creatives team. Alex has been working with us for the past month, and, as well as assisting with writing and editing, has also taken over the Weird Word Origin of the Week posts.
We're excited to announce this month's winners of our Word Love competition. Thanks to everyone who has submitted their favourite word. Have you submitted your #wordlove yet?
Some of the most mundane words come from astounding origins.
If you're building (or rebuilding) your website, it's important to think about your web content early. In this case study with Cubic Street's CEO, Helder Miguel, we talk about why aligning your content and web design is a really great idea.
We're excited to announce this month's winners of our Word Love competition. Thanks to everyone who has submitted their favourite word.
“Oleaginous:
It’s a wonderful word to say, onomatopoeic even. It reminds me of a dear friend who used it to describe someone years ago and I always smile when I think about that memory.”
Samantha will receive a Nine Magic Cake Set from Konditor & Cook, London.
Runners up receive a super cute and handy "Glug" Word Love water bottle.
Winners' words and why they love them will feature throughout the month on Word Love Wednesday.
Follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (#wordlove).
Please note that if your word didn't win this month, it's still in the running, and you can enter as many times as you like.
Word love,
Rocksalt Copy Creatives
As we are fans of spending quality time talking to people about what they need their content to do and what it isn't doing for them, the IM Summit's format — dedicated time slots to present to marketing managers — was an ideal arrangement for the Rocksalt team.
A lot of the words we use today owe their existence to mistakes and mishearings, such as ‘sweetheart’, which began its life as ‘sweetard’.
Sources say that a person you think is sweet used to be called your ‘sweetard’, like ‘coward’, ‘wizard’ and ‘drunkard’.1,2 The ‘-ard’ means ‘one who is’, so ‘sweetard’ meant ‘one who is sweet’.
But people misheard the second syllable as ‘heart’, which was reinforced by the association between your heart and your loved ones. There began the mutation of the word into ‘sweetheart’.
It’s a tale that some authorities argue is dubious. Some say ‘sweetard’ never existed and that ‘sweetheart’ was formed simply by the fusing of ‘sweet’ and ‘heart’, for a person who makes your heart throb. Whatever the true origin of the word is, I think I might start using it.
“Pass the salt, please, sweetard.”
Thanks to Wordcraft for the sweet inspiration for this post.
About the author
Christopher Berry is a qualified solicitor and aspiring copywriter who interned with us this year. He specialises in writing for business, children's books, science fiction for adults, and poetry. He enjoys creating pictures out of words, has a weakness for time travel, and his favourite word is 'defenestrate'.
Banner image: 90s television series "Goodnight Sweetheart" title card, sourced from LandGirl1980
As with many words in the English language, the word ‘pea’ came about by mistake.
The singular form used to be ‘pease’. This was the Middle English noun. Over time, people started thinking ‘pease’ was the plural form of the word. As a result, the ‘se’ was dropped and ‘pea’ became the new singular. The nursery rhyme, written today, would be:
“Pea porridge hot, pea porridge cold, pea porridge in the pot – nine days old!”
Similarly, other words like ‘sweetheart’ (from ‘sweetard’), ‘shamefaced’ (from ‘shamefast’) and ‘buttonhole’ (from ‘buttonhold’) all owe their existence to mishearings.
If only I were back in school. I would spell all these words the old — correct — way, wait for my work to be scrawled on in red pen, and spark a healthy debate about spelling and grammar rules.
About the author
Christopher Berry is a qualified solicitor and aspiring copywriter who interned with us this year. He specialises in writing for business, children's books, science fiction for adults, and poetry. He enjoys creating pictures out of words, has a weakness for time travel, and his favourite word is 'defenestrate'.
Banner image: Peas by Richard North is licenced under CC BY 2.0
Adj: Causing or likely to cause damage or harm
It doesn’t happen as often now as when I was a voraciously reading teen, but I still get the same kick out of hearing a word I’ve never previously heard — or had need to use — and immediately going in search of its meaning. The last time it happened was in January with “preponderant”.
As I walked my daily commute yesterday, listening to the podcast interview with Australia’s Bob Brown, a transformative figure in Australia’s political and environmental landscape, on Conversations with Richard Fidler, I couldn’t help but smile when I involuntarily repeated Bob Brown after he said the word ‘injurious’. As I walked through Clapham Junction, not particularly bothered about how my fellow commuters felt about my vocal outburst, I knew that I had just welcomed a new word, whatever it meant.
The hunt for the word’s meaning took a little longer than expected because, in my mind, it was spelt ‘endurious’ — something to do with enduring. This may have been influenced by the fact that I am an endurance runner, but the context of Bob’s conversation could also have meant ‘to endure’ rather than ‘to be injured’. Endurious, however, is not a word. Perhaps it should be.
Injurious is an eloquent word for the task it serves, and for someone who is quite apt at falling down, it’s nice to know there’s a word that adds some insight, not insult, to injury.
Do words jump out and grab you, or do you have an old faithful that you love to pull out a parties; you know, like 'epanorthosis'?
Share your favourites with us and we'll aim to share it on Word Love Wednesday.
A surprising number of words exist in the Oxford English Dictionary because of typographical errors1, with some sources2,3 citing as many as 350 misheard or misspelt 'ghost words'.
It’s funny how mistakes can bring words into being. For example, ‘shamefaced’ comes from the original ‘shamefast’, which meant ‘shy’ and ‘modest’. People misheard ‘fast’ as ‘faced’, a mishearing reinforced by the association between facial expressions and shyness or embarrassment.
‘Sweetheart’ was born from ‘sweetard’ in the same way. So was ‘pea’, which used to be ‘pease’.
Then there’s words such as ‘dord’. ‘Dord’ first appeared in Webster’s New International Dictionary in 1934 as a noun meaning ‘density’. But today ‘dord’ is regarded as a ‘ghost word’. It came about because one of Webster’s editors sent in a slip of paper marked ‘D or d – density’. This was intended to add ‘density’ to a list of words that could be abbreviated with a capital ‘D’ or a lowercase ‘d’. But it made it onto the ‘words’ pile and the phrase ‘D or d’ was mistaken for a word: ‘Dord’ (aka D-or-d).
It’s not just words that change or come into being because of errors. Grammar changes, too. Did you notice the grammar error in the previous paragraph? If you didn’t, it’s because the error is being increasingly normalised in our speech. The error is there’s, a contraction of ‘there is’, which can technically only be used before a singular subject. For example, you can say: “There is a pigeon.” You can’t say: “There is pigeons everywhere!” Yet, it’s not unnatural to say: “There’s pigeons everywhere!”
About the author
Christopher Berry is a qualified solicitor and aspiring copywriter who interned with us this year. He specialises in writing for business, children's books, science fiction for adults, and poetry. He enjoys creating pictures out of words, has a weakness for time travel, and his favourite word is 'defenestrate'.
I bumped into a writer colleague of ours at the Networking Bar as I waited for the first session of the Technology for Marketing & Advertising exhibition to begin. She had attended the previous day, and felt that much of what was being said was about content automation and distribution, and not so much about content creation.
I like to reflect on web trends, and currently there's no shortage of software to make analysing, distributing, and automating your content much easier. It's not uncommon now to have software that can have you call a person within minutes of their being on your site, and have them befuddled by how psychic you are: "that's funny, I was just looking at your site". Those are some powerful marketing tools (which I personally find confronting and a little creepy). But there's no discussion about how great content supports this lead generating journey.
Talk of quality content comes up as an obscure entity that is loved by Google, that you must have and that should be:
But what is just right? Every content context is different, and should be aligned to both your audience objectives and your tone of voice. It's also important to remember that not everyone can or should write content.
"This website looks really bad because a lawyer made it." #nooffence #dowhatyouknow --Kate
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014If you're refreshing an existing website, the first step -- before wireframes, before design conversations -- needs to be a content audit. What content do you currently have, what role does it play, and what message does it send?
Incidentally, I just read a fantastic example about needing to start the content conversation early: How to convince clients to think about content before they think about graphics. Now, before you start yelling at me that "graphics are content, you fool", the title 'graphics' is referring to the website design layout not graphics as a content asset.
To paraphrase: you need to audit, analyse, and create your content (we'll discuss 'distribute' another day). I would also add that the people who create your content should have the necessary skills to do so, and that a defined publishing workflow should be in place to make sure that there is a forum for questioning and refining.
Your publishing workflow doesn't have to be a formal one, but should be consistent and easy to build around your work life. For example, when we write our Rocksalt blog posts, we always ask a colleague to review before publishing. This catches any typos (we hope), and ensures that the team are on the same page when it comes to our blog content.
I recommend reading Kristina Halvorson's Content Strategy for the Web: a bite-sized book packed with information to get you started on your content strategy journey.
Food for thought: 90% of consumers use 3 different screens to consume content each day #TFMA2014
— Carolyn Johnson (@CarolynJ87) February 26, 2014Consistency is key: give all readers the same experience and message no matter what language #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014If you're working on a website relaunch, audit your content to truly understand it and its relevance to your audience. @twobirds #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Translating content is not about a specific country but the global audience of people who speak it. Spanish=Spain/Lat.Amer./US #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014The take away from this session was how much search has moved to mobile devices, and the impact that not having a responsive website will have on your search results. If people are bouncing off your non-responsive, non-user-friendly website on a mobile device, how do you think Google will take that? Not well, I assure you. Make sure your website design and content are optimised for all devices.
We were recently asked to quote on providing nearly 100 new pages of duplicate content (adjusting keywords for search). We provide the quote as requested, but we were also keen to provide an alternative SEO solution in line with Google's latest guidelines.
After this TFM&A session, I reviewed the company's website on my mobile and saw that it is not currently a responsive website. I would further suggest that they build an optimised website as a key priority to ensure that they remain relevant in search.
Google has evolved, quietly but surely, to be running a turbo-charged engine. A complete rewrite of how it reads your content. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014If your content doesn't address the future of digital marketing, then you'll see your Google rank slide @foundrycomms #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Oh, the changes we'll see. Adapt: be responsive, conversational, precise. Positive UX @foundrycomms #tfma2014 pic.twitter.com/jXTL8fswg3
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Searching is changing to respond to conversational queries and if you're not appropriately answering... trouble. Web trouble. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Hummingbird is positioning brands based on trust through combo of search + social corroborating your authority. #TFMA2014 @foundrycomms
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Move content from 'me me me' to focus on what your audience needs to know #oldschool #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Find influencers in social media, engage with them with great content, they'll engage with you, and you've got a viral mkg r'ship. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Google Hummingbird = relevancy of content. Create an editorial calendar and put the content in motion. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 20142014 is the year of visual. Also, you need a Google+ account, get a rel=author, and get your face in search: you authority, you. #tfma2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Quality content, people! Don't worry about quantity but DO worry about quality. #TFMA2014 @foundrycomms pic.twitter.com/c9cSV3sru9
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014SEO is changing. It is worth the bother to keep up because it's a guaranteed qualified lead. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Panda focused on demoting thin content/ad heavy/keyword stuffing. Hummingbird is about user intent & does content address it. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Google is becoming a knowledge engine to get into conversational search. Conversations with the user. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014With Google changes, we're moving away from search manipulation, and back to proper marketing #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014"People are still looking for good content." Good news for us. As digital copywriters, we're celebrating the changes to search #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Know about the old "Venice" Google update? It might be affecting you. Do your research and update your content accordingly. #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Content marketing is nothing new: it's about creating quality content. Google always loved quality, but manipulation took focus #TFMA2014
— Rocksalt Copywriters (@rocksaltnews) February 26, 2014Paul Nolan: +44 (0) 7970 176031
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