You know, for the longest time, the hair on the back of my neck stood up whenever I heard a teen mumble: “whatever”. It wasn’t just the use of the word that bothered me; it was the unmistakable tone it was said in. (If you’ve ever heard a teenager use the word, you know EXACTLY the tone I mean.)

Well, I have to say — as of this week, I’m changing my tune (no pun intended) on use (or misuse) of that poor pronoun. My change of heart came after the umpteenth e-mail I got regarding a volunteer event I’m working on where every little decision seems to required a dozen back-and-forth e-mails soliciting opinions. Finally, at one point (thankfully alone in my office), as I read one of the e-mails I just wanted to scream: WHATEVER!!!! (After regaining my composure, I chose the more adult route and simply sat back and withdraw from the electronic “dialog”, figuring at some point a decision would be made and my additional two cents weren’t going to add much.)

I guess the reason I thought this merits word of the week status is because it’s a good reminder that when it comes to spoken words, it’s often not just what you say that matters, it’s how you say it!

The front page headline of today’s Toronto Star read: “Office towers win tax cuts”. The headline accompanied an article by John Spears of the City Hall bureau about a decision by the Assessment Review Board (ARB) that may give the owners of 12 of Toronto’s biggest downtown office towers a property tax refund — a big one. (The case is complicated and the amount of the refund is not clear — but, according to the article, “the amounts in play are staggering”.)

As a resident of Toronto, naturally I’m interested in the news. (If the tower owners do get a refund, that will leave a huge hole in the City’s budget that may end up being filled in by hitting up residential property owners — like me.) But, the item in the news story that caught my eye as a plain language consultant is the fact that it appears the case turns, at least in part, on the interpretation of a certain phrase — an arcane legal phrase — used in the definition of “current value” in S. 1 of the Assessment Act.

According to the article, “[T]he bank towers case was highly technical and hinged on what is meant by the words of the Assessment Act, which says assessment should be based on the value of a buidling “in fee simple, if unencumbered”.”

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), the organization charged with assessing properties, argued the value of the towers should be determined based on their value fully occupied by rent-paying tenants. The tower owners said that the wording of the Assessment Act means the towers must be valued as though the buildings are unencumbered by tenants and leases.

The ARB agreed with the tower owners and held that MPAC’s assessment method “contains a fundamental flaw”, according to the Star article. Apparently the ARB rejected MPAC’s submission (which had been joined in by the City of Toronto), saying the submission was “based on an incorrect interpretation of the words of the Act.”.

Sure seems to me this confusion (not to mention all the legal costs incurred in bringing the action) might have been avoided if the Assessment Act were written in plain language.

FYI, apparent MPAC is considering appealing the ARB’s decision. Stay tuned… I know I will!

So I have a new rule of thumb when it comes to deciding whether a word qualifies as plain language: if it’s not in the standard version of a good dictionary (for example, my trusty Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4^th Ed.) or an on-line one like www.merriam-webster.com) I think it’s safe to say the word is too highfalutin to be used in most communication.

I was in a conversation the other day and the person I was speaking with used the word convivium. Not (usually) too embarrassed to admit when I didn’t know what a word means and, of course, certainly not too embarrassed to ask how the word is spelled, I asked both questions. The person (graciously) spelled it and defined it for me.

Intrigued (and because I had kind of forgotten the definition), I went on-line to look it up. When I went into the Merriam-Webster site that I usually use and I typed in the word, the message that popped up surprised me. Though it’s clear that it’s a word (and I spelled it correctly), the message said that to get the definition I had to go to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged site which is a subscription-based site. (I should note that there was a free trial offer for the Unabridged version, but I didn’t try it. Instead, I decided to look for it in my regular dictionary (Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4^th Ed.).)

Well, turns out it’s not in my regular dictionary either. So, unless someone out there has a less-abridge dictionary than I do, or perhaps subscribes to Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged site and wants to share the definition of convivium, I’m not going to worry it. I’ll stick to plain language words.

I’m a stickler about using quotation marks. I think if you’re directly quoting something, you must use quotation marks and you must attribute the source of the quote. Usually this issue comes up in terms of concerns of plagiarism. Indeed, I often advise clients that even when you’re not quoting something verbatim (for example, you’re paraphrasing something someone else said or wrote), to avoid claims of plagiarism, it’s a good idea to mention where the idea comes from.

But the proper use of quotation marks isn’t limited to whether to use them to avoid claims of plagiarism. A recent news story from my alma mater (Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism) focused on another aspect related to using quotation marks — the use of unattributed quotes.

The issue came to my attention when a fellow Medill alum e-mailed me a recent article from the Chicago Tribune. The Trib article focused on the use of unattributed quotes by Dean of the journalism school in the Letter from the Dean column that appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of the Medill alumni magazine.

Apparently, a columnist (David Spett) on the Daily Northwestern (the student newspaper) found the quotes curious (they didn’t sound like something students would say) and so he: 1) tried to find out who might have said them, and 2) took the Dean to task for using unattributed quotes — a technique that Medill students wouldn’t get away with in class. The Trib article highlights the issue well (as well as some some of the politics that might be further fueling the controversy).

Given that this was a letter from the Dean that ran in an alumni magazine, I don’t think the use of quotation marks should be analyzed in terms of the strict rules a journalist would apply to a news story. Instead, I would analyze it this way: in choosing to use quotation marks the Dean was trying to add credence to his opening statement that Medill is producing well trained students.

Clearly, he could have made the same point by simply saying that the feedback he’s gotten from students confirms that they feel well trained, etc. But, because he chose to use quotation marks he clearly was implying that it’s not just his view and so readers should have been told who else, specifically, supports his claim (if for no other reason, so that readers can decide for themselves whether the persons quoted are believable, etc.).

I think the bottom line is that quotation marks are a very powerful tool and should be used with great care.

For those of you who don’t know the definition of this week’s word, according to Merriam-Webster OnLine it means “having shapely buttocks”.

Believe it or not, this word came up in a conversation I had recently with — of all people — my dentist. (No, he doesn’t moonlight as a plastic surgeon, at least not as far as I know!)

Because my dentist knows I make my living as a writer, as he walked into the room he quizzed me on whether I knew what the word meant. I didn’t. Then he launched into a funny story about an upcoming dental symposium he was going to. Apparently, one of the participants would be discussing something to do with asymmetry (presumably facial asymmetries) – but in the e-mail describing the session, asymmetry was misspelled. Yup, an extra “s” was used, making it: assymmetry. My dentist — a lover of words and etymology — apparently couldn’t resist replying to the e-mail. Though I’m paraphrasing, his response was something like he was looking forward to his first discussion of callipygian features at a dental conference.

Anyway, my dentist’s unbridled enthusiasm about the word (he didn’t just tell me the definition, he also told me the two Greek words it comes from) was a sweet reminder that sometimes words just tickle us. So, for Dr. Gardner’s reminder of the richness of words and language, I decided it deserves mention as word of the week.

I was at a seminar this week presented by a law firm. The topic was competition law and at one point the discussion turned to what could happen if the police come to your company’s offices to carry out a search warrant (for example, looking for proof of collusion or price fixing). The point was made that if companies keep documents beyond the legally required period, those documents are fair game in the event of a search.

Then, rather than recommend that companies destroy documents after the statutorily required time for keeping them, here’s what the lawyer recommended:

“So, companies should have robust record retention policies”.

When I heard that, the old song refrain: “You say to-mA-to, I say to-mAH-to” came to mind – or maybe a variation of it – something like, “You say euphemism, I say double-speak”.

With the world’s stock markets on a daily — sometimes hourly — rollercoaster ride, it might seem surprising that I’ve chosen “abundant” as word of the week. (After all, abundance is probably not what folks think is in store if the economy hits the skids.)

I’ve chosen it because it jumped off the page at me this week as I was reading a law firm’s promotional brochure. Here’s the sentence that caught my eye:

“[Our] Criminal Law Group has abundant years of experience defending criminal and quasi-criminal charges that often involve complicated issues of law, facts and evidence.”

Abundant years of experience? My dictionary (Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4th Ed.)) defines abundant as: 1 very plentiful; more than sufficient; ample, 2 well supplied; rich.

When a client writes something like “abundant years of experience” and I change it, I often struggle to explain why I’ve done so. In this case, pointing out the dictionary definition should explain it all — but the frustrating part is trying to explain how you can avoid making such errors. (Clearly the person who wrote it didn’t realize he or she was using the word wrong.)

There is no foolproof way of avoiding improper usage other than to look words up. Of course, if you don’t think you’re confused about the meaning of a word, chances are you’d never even think of looking it up, and it’s not practical to look up every word.

I understand the frustration — and, the fact is, we’ve all misused words on occasion. But, in this case, the law firm could have avoided the error if they’d have stuck to more ordinary words. My guess is that the firm thought writing something like “we have lots of experience defending …” was too informal (or “not professional”), so they chose “abundant”.

The beauty of using ordinary words is everyone will understand you and you don’t risk seeming illiterate.

When I give plain language seminars I always include a discussion of jargon. I usually define jargon as a term that has special meaning in a particular field. I think most people think of jargon as fairly exotic or unusual words or phrases — but common words also can be jargon when they take on special meaning in certain contexts. The example I often give of a common word that can be jargon is “sheet”. If a sailor says, “pass me the sheet”, she’s likely talking about a rope; if hotel housekeepers are making up a room and one says, “pass me the sheet”, the other will pass them a bed linen.

Unless you specifically define how you’re using particular jargon, you risk confusing your audience because you may have one meaning in mind and the audience may have another meaning in mind.

This week’s Word of the Week is another great example of a common word that can be jargon. Many of the U.S. presidential candidates are throwing around “change”, but you can bet that it means something distinctly different to each of them and to voters. (Of course, I suppose we all know that politicians have their reasons for not defining what they mean …)

Many of my clients write reports and opinions that are fairly long. How much information or detail to include is always an issue for them, and it’s one they frequently ask me about. Unfortunately, there is no simple, or “right”, answer.

That said, at the risk of sounding flippant, I usually tell them the rule of thumb is they should include “just enough” information. Of course, determining how much is “just enough” can be challenging, but if you put yourself in the place of the reader, you’ll be in a much better position to figure out what to include than if you just keep looking at it from the perspective of the writer. In other words, consider:

• what information the reader truly needs to know to understand the point you’re trying to make,
• what information (or understanding) the reader already has about the topic,
• the readers’ inherent interest in the information, and
• the amount of time the reader is able to invest in reading the document.

Assessing these things requires judgment. Furthermore, the determination can be even more complicated if the audience is diverse (as it often is).

If you find you have a lot of valuable information but you believe not every reader in your target audience will want, or need, the same level of detail, consider whether some of the information might be suited for appendices or schedules. (For the record, I am neutral as to whether you call something an appendix or schedule. It seems, or at least some clients have argued, that in certain fields or industries one term is more commonly used than the other. My view is you should use whatever label you think appropriate.)

So, for example, if you’re reporting on the results of tests or research your firm did, the body of the report must include enough detail for members of your target audience to understand the project and how you reached the conclusions you did. Additional information, for example, details about the tests you carried out or the data you used or analyzed can be included in an appendix.

I find what the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.) says about the content of an appendix helpful:

“An appendix may include explanations and elaborations that are not essential parts of text but are helpful to a reader seeking further clarification, texts of documents, long lists, survey questionnaires, or sometimes even charts or tables. The appendix should not be a repository for odds and ends that the author could not work into the text.”

If you use appendices or schedules, however, keep in mind that readers may well (or, in some cases, likely will) ignore them. Shocking, I know! But the reality is, many readers won’t read them. So, if you have something important to say — or that you think the reader should know — it must be in the main body of text.

And finally, a few words about glossaries. Glossaries usually contain definitions of terms (or abbreviations) used in the text. Like appendices and schedules, glossaries are meant to provide useful information for readers. But, having to constantly refer to a glossary to figure out what a term means is often more annoying than helpful, so include glossaries only if they’re really necessary. And remember — inclusion of a term in a glossary isn’t meant as a substitute for explaining the term in the main text.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) offered advice* for companies using glossaries in disclosure documents that I think is appropriate for any writer considering including a glossary:

• avoid frequent reliance on glossaries or defined terms as the primary means of explaining information, and
• use a glossary only if it facilitates understanding of the disclosure.

  * http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2006/33-8732a.pdf