Don't use no bad English

The bly.com blog (a copywriting blog) asks an interesting question: Must Copywriters Use Good English?

On the table is this groaner, heard on the radio: "Monthly payments are as low as $300 a month."

Must we use good English? As far as I'm concerned, the short answer is no.

The longer answer is, Good English is preferable but there are other things that are more important. Like:

• Clarity.
  
• Emotion.
  
• Sounding natural and making a connection with the reader.
  

It's possible for these things to come in conflict with "Good English."

Suppose you came up with this sentence: Who can I depend on? It contains one error (it should be "whom") plus one pseudo-error (it ends with a preposition; fussy schoolmarm-types care about that, but it's not really an error). The corrected version would be On whom can I depend? That sounds awkward, pedantic, and excessively formal. Normal people don't talk that way; it simultaneously pulls attention away from the meaning and puts up a barrier between the writer and reader.

I'd take the error-infested version over the correct one any day. Or, perhaps, I'd recast the sentence to avoid the issue entirely and be correct and sound good.

Flat-out errors can make you look stupid -- though I suspect they do a lot less harm than some fear. And using "Good English" signals that you're careful with your thoughts and words. It's also a "class marker" a secret identity badge that shows you're educated, not one of the riffraff.

If you want to motivate people to voluntarily part of with their money on your behalf, your personal pride in your education and parentage of no place in your communications. It's more important to be friendly, passionate, clear than it is to be "correct."

First things first. Good English is second.

Technorati Tags: grammar, copywriting

Comments

[Bob Bly]

I agree with your analysis.

[Chuck]

Absolutely! I know of one E.D. who wouldn't let his staff make a dislay that said "Who we are...Who can help... who we serve." The ED insisted on "good english" and saying "whom we serve." He is right, that's proper grammer, but it breaks the flow and it sounds snooty.

I'm all for effective communication. Know the rules of grammer, and know when to break them!