The GSA Emily Murphy transition letter is a study in conflicted language

The GSA Emily Murphy transition letter is a study in conflicted language

Weeks after the networks declared the presidential election for Joe Biden, the administrator of the US General Services Administration made the decision to release congressionally appropriated resources and cash to fund the Biden transition team. This required her to take two contradictory positions at once: that Biden won, and that Trump had not yet lost….

A few very dumb COVID-19 corporate messages

A few very dumb COVID-19 corporate messages

Every corporation you’ve ever done business with is now filling your inbox with “reassuring” messages. Most of them are companies you’ll never work with again, so they’re just an annoying background buzz. But some of them are actively dopey. Things are bad enough — this is no time for more self-inflicted brand damage. And now,…

Airline pilots who hate the shutdown must be more direct

Airline pilots who hate the shutdown must be more direct

The head of the Air Line Pilots Association sent a letter to President Trump warning of the government shutdown’s impact on safety. It’s sobering, especially when you strip out the passive, military-jargon-laden language and clarify what they’re really saying. The ALPA is a union that represents 61,000 pilots including those flying for Delta and American….

No one knows if a recession is coming. But that doesn’t stop them from writing about it.

No one knows if a recession is coming. But that doesn’t stop them from writing about it.

The brutal stock downturn and indicators like the bond yield curve are signaling that a recession might be on its way. It must be that time again: Time for economists to make equivocal predictions, and journalists to equivocate madly writing about them. Neil Irwin of The New York Times feature “The Upshot” is here to…

An editor’s notebook: when repeated words are the author’s “binky”
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An editor’s notebook: when repeated words are the author’s “binky”

Which words does your author come back to again and again? As an editor, your eye and ear must detect these repetitions, but that’s not sufficient. You need to understand why the author comes back to them and suggest fixes that improve meaning, rather than just creating variety. In a business book I recently edited, the…

10 ways to make your corporate description (boilerplate) less dreadful
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10 ways to make your corporate description (boilerplate) less dreadful

It’s there. At the bottom of your press releases, on the “Who we are” section of your website, at the end of your whitepapers. It’s the “boilerplate” description of your company. And it’s terrible. You’ve got 50 to 60 words to tell the world who you are, but if you’re like most companies, what you’re…