Say it like it is and keep the ‘bad boyfriends’ at bay.

ONE of life’s most overlooked essential skills is learning to tell bad writing from good.

This requires more talent than you might think. Good writing is easy to identify because it is succinct, understandable and gets directly to the point. It is impossible to find fault with a line like “Call me Ishmael”.

Bad writing, on the other hand, is not always as straightforward to pick up on. The tricky bit is when you read something that appears to make sense but is completely incomprehensible on closer analysis.

Two weeks ago, I came across what I like to call a “bad boyfriend” press release: one that is full of wonderful-sounding words, but is ultimately meaningless.

That’s not to say it didn’t read well. In fact, like most bad boyfriends, it was extremely slick.

“By harnessing next-generation technologies,” the press release said, “our customers will have access to a single, integrated marketplace that blends cutting-edge technologies with end-to-end services that address every aspect of successful go-to-market campaigns.”

At first glance, the words sent my pulse racing. The sentence was smooth, silky and bombastically seductive.

With some effort, I prevented myself from swooning at my desk. Then I got down to translating these honeyed phrases into simple English.

That was when I realised that I didn’t really know what these words meant at all.

What exactly is an end-to-end service? Where is this single, integrated marketplace? Who were these people going to the market?

Like a jilted girlfriend in denial about a two-timing lover, I frantically raced through all the other sweet sentences in the press release to find a concrete commitment – to a product, a service, anything.

Instead, I kept stumbling on vague promises of “360-degree, innovative and impactful end-to-end solutions”, “greater options to on-board and embed pre-selected technologies”, and “scalable and ready plug-in technology that speeds up deployment time, accelerating time-to-market”.

By the time I read through the whole release, my head was spinning. And this time it wasn’t in a good way.

In my few years as a journalist, I’ve seen my fair share of headache-inducing corporate-speak. It usually involves “synergistic solutions”, “core competencies”, “leveraging value-add” and “enhanced” everything.

One memorable media statement about a new property launch waxed lyrical about the development being “aroused by its historical context” and blending various elements into a “beautifully layered woven architectural lantern”. I don’t know about you, but I find the idea of living in an aroused lantern a bit disturbing.

If you think this whole column is just a rant about bad press releases, however, you would only be 99% right.

I’ve actually already gotten the rant out of my system – mostly – by complaining at length to my colleagues.

And in doing so, I realised that these bad press releases are really only a symptom of two broader modern-day plagues: the inability to say anything plainly and the tendency to use big words to hide a lack of substance.

This is manifested not just in marketing materials. In fact, the connection between these two problems is neatly illustrated by another dating metaphor.

These days, if you ask someone whether the new friend they’ve been spending all their weekends with is now their boyfriend or girlfriend, they get this pained, scrunched-up expression on their face.

“I wouldn’t call it dating ... We’re just hanging out, but, I don’t know, it’s not serious or anything, we’ll see where it goes,” they’ll say, demonstrating that giving a simple yes or no answer has now become an impossible task for most people.

“It’s complicated,” they then conclude with an explanatory air, as though a four-syllable word adds legitimacy to their nebulousness.

In the same way, people who are out of a job are never simply unemployed. Rather, they are “in-between jobs, finding myself, taking some me-time, working out what really makes me happy”.

And then, of course, they tack on the big words: a lack of a job is actually a “sabbatical” during which people achieve “self-actualisation”.

The list goes on. Kids who are too distracted to concentrate in school have “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder”. Adults who don’t do well in the workplace lack “incentivisation”.

There’s even a multisyllabic phrase to excuse those who use long words to obfuscate. To me, their problem is just hot air, but to them it is “sesquipedalian obscurantism”.

For all these people, I have five short words: Say it like it is.

Of course, if I had taken my own advice, I wouldn’t have needed 753 words to make that point. – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network

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