Grammar isn't a dirty word
Charlotte Booth • 5 April 2022
Five tips for better copy
Grammar is something that often feels people with dread. Not me. Not anymore.
Others feel that in the modern world, grammar is not important and that it's old fashioned. In some ways they're right, but in other ways grammar is just as important now as it ever was.
Some believe that grammatical knowledge is declining. However, this isn't accurate. Grammar is changing. As our spoken language changes constantly so does the acceptable grammatical structures. It's important to keep up.
For example, there is more fluidity between spoken and written English, and American and British English is interchangable in many circumstances.
Despite this fluidity grammar is still important, as it can improve your business copy and make your content seem more credible.
However, the language you use very much depends on your audience. If you are writing for a young demographic then contractions, abbreviations and text speak may be appropriate but if you are aiming at corporate CEOs then you will need something more formal.
Grammar doesn't have to be complicated. Just a quick scour through social media and business websites shows me some of the most common mistakes. Here are five which bug me the most. Overcome these and your copy is instantly improved as is my mood.
- Would of - This is a mistake which is aural in nature. When we speak we say "I would've been on time" which is a contraction of 'would have' not 'would of.'
- It's - This is a common mistake which is easy to make. 'It's' means 'it is' but 'its' without the apostrophe means something belongs to it.
- You're/Your - You're means 'you are' and your is a possessive, as in 'your email'. How many emails have you seen with 'I hope your well' instead of 'I hope you're well'?
- Ellipses - We all love ellipses but few seem to use them correctly. Ellipses are those dots ... which add suspense to your copy. To use them correctly, only use three dots with a space in front of the first and after the last, and only use them if the sentence is unfinished.
- Yourself - Like me you've probably seen, or perhaps even written, "I'd like a meeting with yourself". Reflexives (myself, yourself) cannot involve other people. "Spend time by yourself", "I like to read by myself", "They talked among themselves". If you want to arrange a meeting with someone, you can't use a reflexive. Instead you'd say "I'd like a meeting with you." Ensure the pronouns match (I can do things with myself, and they can do do things with themselves), and if they don't match, rewrite.
By taking these five grammatical errors onboard you can instantly improve your copy, social media posts and emails. If it seems like way too much of a faff, ask me
to do your copy for you. I will avoid all of these and hundreds more grammatical errors.
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There is nothing more amusing than checking out mediaeval artistic renditions of lions and other heraldic creatures. These beasts, grimacing and gurning are a strange juxtaposition of human, animal and demon and as far from the cute image of Alex from the Madagascar franchise or in fact a real lion as you could possibly get. There are three main reasons mediaeval lions are so ‘bad’ and un-representational; The artists were following a very tight brief. Some of the artists may never have seen a lion, and were following the descriptions they were given. These lions were representing heraldic principals of bravery, nobility and authority; all very human characteristics. When viewed through this lens it becomes more understandable why they look the way they do, but they are still ‘not right’ and not a great tool for learning about lions. Generative AI is very similar to an uninformed but talented mediaeval artist. There is a element of intelligence but at the end of the day it is following a brief, with no actual ‘knowledge’ of the thing it is producing. As an example, if you prompt your generative AI (ChatGPT and the like) to produce a blog for your new product or service, aimed at your ideal customer avatar you will in all likelihood get a mediaeval lion out the other end. Sort of recognisable, and sort of not. This is because AI doesn’t know what a customer is (ideal or otherwise), has no idea what your product or service is and does, and has no true understanding of how this service or product will serve your ideal customer and their needs. Of course, AI is pulling all the information available from the internet to help with its answer but there is no understanding there. There is no determining fact from falsehoods or even which websites are trustworthy and which are not. So, it skims the internet and puts together content which suits the brief as it understands it. This is then when the actual work should start as this content shouldn’t be used in the raw. It should be edited and tweaked by a human who DOES understand the brief, has been a customer (ideal or otherwise) and can imagine what your ideal customer will feel when using your product or services. We are in a world now, where we have generative AI promoting products and services to humans, when it has no concept of what a human is and how it thinks, meaning the marketing department are in fact more important than ever for ensuring content and copy is aimed at humans and human emotions. You could argue that the world would be a more entertaining place if there were more mediaeval lions in it, but it wouldn’t be a great environment for learning, or for basing purchasing decisions on. If you want to maintain the human element in your content, then I would love to help . Explain the brief, your CTA and your ideal client and I will know what I need to ask to get a clear idea before writing. Then you can rest assured your content was written by a human for a human and we can leave the mediaeval lions to the museums.
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