I can’t believe it’s almost that time of year again! But it is…

Yes, March 4th is National Grammar Day according to the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG).

Though it may still be snowy and cold where you live (it’s cold here, but the snow’s pretty much gone) — I hope you take a moment to celebrate the role good grammar plays in making an all too confusing world world a wee bit easier to understand.

In case you’re wondering, I’m writing about the verb form of the word.

I don’t need to define it for you — you know what it means. I hope you also know how important it is that you do it. And, if you need a reason — just think of it as a privilege that many people around the world are not fortunate enough to have.

So, please vote.

I first heard this week’s word of the week (robo-call) this morning when Colin Powell used it on Meet the Press. Of course, Powell didn’t stop and define it (for those like me who had never heard of the word), but from the context I figured he was referring to those annoying taped phone messages we’ve all received — often from telemarketers, but also from various political groups.

When I heard the word, I made a mental note of it, but I didn’t rush to look it up or anything. But then, about an hour later, I was reading an article in the Sunday Toronto Star and the word came up in an Associated Press article about — you guessed it — the U.S. election. This time, not only did I make a mental note of it (and the fact that it was hypehnated, making it, basically, a compound adjective), I decided to look it up on Merriam-webster.com.

Given that I suspect the term is of fairly new, I wasn’t surprised I couldn’t find in on Merriam-webster.com. I then turned to WordSpy.com — the great resource for new words. To my surprise, robocall wasn’t listed there either.

So, though I never intended Word of the Week to be on the cutting edge of new words, I’m not opposed to the idea either. Therefore, I offer “robo-call” — those taped phone messages sent out using an automated calling system. Mind you, I’m not condoning robo-calls, I’m just saying that it seems there is now a name for those annoying calls!

I chose this week’s word of the week for two reasons. First, I’ve been working on a big editing project for a corporate client — one with more than half dozen different writers — and each one of them used “upon”. For example: upon receipt of an assignment; upon closure of the file; upon contact with; etc.

The first few times I came across it, I unceremoniously changed “upon” to “on” — it just sounded more normal to me. After awhile, however, use of “upon” was so prevalent, I began wondering if there was some corporate policy to use “upon” instead of on. (I thought maybe they were using a style sheet I wasn’t aware of!)

At some point, I decided I had better look “upon” up, to make sure I could justify making the change. I’m pleased to say I was right, as Merriam.webster.com uses one word to define “upon”: on. Interestingly, it also notes that “upon” is from the 12th century (which explains why it sounded so stilted and, well, out-of-date to me).

Anyway — at the same time that I was lopping off the “up” on all those “upons”, I was working on another project where there was a strict length limit based on the number of characters (rather than words). I can’t tell you how frustrating it was to cut and paste text into the template we were working on and get an error message that read something like: “17 characters too long”. When that happens you find yourself carefully combing through the text, literally looking for ways of eliminating a character here and there. So, when you’re in that granular editing mode, you think to yourself — if I make that “upon” into “on”, I can save two characters!

So there you have it — two reasons you should think twice before using “upon”: you can save yourself characters and demonstrate to your readers that you’re no longer in the 12th century.

I always thought a maverick was a horse. Turns out, I was confusing it with a mustang… oh well.

So, trying hard to make sense of the current U.S. presidential race, I thought I had better look maverick up. Here’s how Merriam-webster.com defines it:

1: an unbranded range animal ; especially : a motherless calf
2: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help me much in understanding why being a maverick (or at least seeing ones self as a maverick) makes one particularly appealing as a presidential or vice presidential choice. (Not to mention that it seems kind of odd to think of the head of a party as someone who relished the idea that they don’t go along with others in their party…)

I guess I’d rather vote for someone who is qualified, experienced, level-headed, and smart, and who proudly heads a party whose ideals are well reasoned and clearly articulated than someone who seems to prize being a maverick more than anything.

I can’t help wonder if everyone’s as tired as I am of hearing about the venerable financial institutions that are crumbling around us.The first few times I heard the term used to describe Lehman Brothers (or was it Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac? I can’t remember), though I thought I knew what venerable meant, I decided to look it up. Here’s how Merriam-Webster.com
defines it:

1: deserving to be venerated – used as a title for an Anglican archdeacon or for a Roman Catholic who has been accorded the lowest of three degrees of recognition for sanctity 2: made sacred especially by religious or historical association 3 a: calling forth respect through age, character, and attainments (a venerable jazz musician); broadly: conveying an impression of aged goodness and benevolence (encouraged by the venerable doctor’s head-nodding) b: impressive by reason of age(under venerable pines)

I think it’s likely that most people have meant the third definition for venerable when they’re using it to describe financial institutions. On the other hand, maybe the nod to religion in the first and second definitions is more apropos. After all, I think there’s a good argument that much of the financial mess we’re in was caused by the misplaced reverence people have had for these institutions.

As is often the case, this week’s Word of the Week was something I came across in the newspaper. Those up on pop culture will probably know why I saw the word in the paper this week. Those not up on pop culture might think I was reading about some new high-end restaurant or store. (After all, Merriam-Webster.com defines posh as “elegant, fashionable”.)

Well, in truth, it wasn’t really the word that was in the news — it was the person who goes by the name “Posh” (or Posh Spice, to be more accurate).

Actually, as I write this, I realize maybe Word of the Week should have been “news” — as clearly the definition of what constitutes news is changing from when I was in journalism school. Who would have guessed that someone getting a new hairstyle would be news!

As a communications consultant, I realize good communication isn’t just about words. How a document looks has an impact on how the information is received. To me, the best projects are ones where the text and design work together to create a document that’s both useful and compelling.

The ability to “PDF” (which stands for Portable Document Format) documents has gained popularity over the past five years and many companies and organizations have found “PDF’ing” documents an easy way to put information up on their web sites.

One of the main features of PDF is that it allows you to append the document in a way that reproduces the formatting, layout, and colours of the original. And, with the right software (Adobe is the most common), users can see the document in its original splendor and, theoretically, print it for themselves, if they want.

I used the adverb “theoretically” because on at least two occasions recently, I printed out PDF documents I downloaded from the Internet and, when I retrieved them from the printer, I was irritated to find that they didn’t print right – somehow a bunch of text got cut off. After trying again with the same result, I looked more closely at the print dialog box and noticed that the document was formatted for oversize paper (81/2” x 14” in one case and something even bigger in the other case).

In both cases, I’m sure the original documents were made and printed for handing out to customers and clients. The documents were lovely to look at and the organizations no doubt thought they were just making the most by putting the documents (brochures in both cases) up on their web site. Unfortunately, they never gave any thought to how readers might use the PDF version. (I’m sure I’m not the only person who prints things off.)

So, my advice is simple: while attaching PDF documents to your web site is a great way of maintaining the look of the document, remember that there’ll be readers who will print the information and chances are they will be using standard paper. So, if the PDF document doesn’t print well on standard paper, rather than doing your audience a service by providing the information, you’ll end up just irritating folks.

In other words, don’t just PDF because you can. Be mindful of the way people use PDF documents and consider re-formatting them if necessary to make them printer friendly.