A Farewell to Meat…

Hey, everyone, it’s Carnival time! And time for me to hang up the wordsmith hat and indulge in a little history of the language…

To most people that word ‘carnival’ will conjure up images of fun fairs, fairground rides, and/or Brazilian dancers in skimpy costumes.

But if you’re more of a history buff it might just remind you of a painting by Pieter Breughel the Younger known as The Battle of Carnival and Lent.

The painting shows Carnival, an extremely chubby figure mounted on a barrel, engaging in a mock tournament with Lent, an extremely emaciated figure mounted on a trolley.

So what’s that about?

Simple. It represents the point in the Church’s year when Catholics (like me) begin a 40-day period of fasting and abstinence – in preparation of course, for the great feast of Easter, celebrating Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. In the 16th century this fast was observed much more strictly than it is today, and no meat at all was eaten for the whole of the 40 days. So – inevitably – people tended to binge eat before the fast began. Because after that they had to say ‘farewell to meat’ – or, in Latin, carne vale.

On Shrove Tuesday (which most people now think of as Pancake Day) they’d use up some of the last remaining bits and pieces in the larder (like sugar, fat and eggs) that would be forbidden in Lent – and make pancakes with them. The name derives from the tradition of shriving oneself (going to Confession) before the fast.

And on Good Friday (the day of Christ’s crucifixion) you would bake and eat – on that day, and that day only - tasty, spicy, hot cross buns. A foretaste of the feast to come on Easter Sunday…

We still talk about carnival (though not much about Lent). We still have pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (though most people have no idea why). And we still bake hot cross buns (though we like them so much we think it’s a great idea to have them all year round).

So?

Fine. It’s a free country, and people can do what they like. But I think all these things tell us something about our society that we need to understand.

We wouldn’t dream of giving up meat, fat, eggs and sugar for 40 days on the trot (except, perhaps, for a fad diet). We wouldn’t dream of restricting a particular food to just one day in the year – especially if we like it. And most of us couldn’t care less where these ideas and traditions have come from, or what they mean.

In other words, we’re just a bit self-indulgent. And greedy. And wasteful. Which is probably why so many of us look disturbingly like Bruegel’s ‘Carnival’.

We’ve forgotten what it means to eat food in due season. We’ve forgotten how fasting, over a measured time, can make the feast that follows twice as enjoyable (as well as helping us not to over-indulge!) We’ve forgotten how to make one day special, and different from all others.

And we’ve forgotten how self-denial can make occasional, justifiable self-indulgence that much more enjoyable – and enjoyable without guilt.

Result? Well, I hesitate to point to certain senior directors who earn obscene multiples of the salaries they’re prepared to pay their recession-hit staff. But I’ll do it anyway – especially when I see those very clever people at Goldman Sachs trying to swing the public poll on the Robin Hood Tax by recording thousands of fake ‘no’ votes.

Until that moment I had severe doubts about it. I still do, but I’ve now voted ‘yes’. Because if they’re really that scared of it, there must be something in it…!

Tomorrow you may notice a cross marked in ash on my forehead. My acknowledgement that I’m a less than perfect human being getting ready for the Lenten fast. Laugh if you want – that’s fine. But when you’ve had your laugh take a couple of minutes to think about why I’m doing it.

If you think you could benefit from dropping a few pounds (and I certainly could) why not fast with me – just to see what it’s like? And if you don’t think there’s much point in that, take a look at the CAFOD website – and see how your self-denial could help someone else.

Dangerous times!

Do you think the English language is in terminal decay?

Are you irritated by teenagers who mangle their grammar and pronunciation? Worried by text-speak that breaks all conventions of spelling and structure? Irritated by regional accents on the radio? Puzzled by dialects you can’t quite understand?

You may find all these things perfectly acceptable – in which case you may still want to read on. But if you have trouble with them, you’re not alone.

Much the same complaints have been made by writers all the way back through recorded history. In fact almost as far back as Alfred the Great, who was largely responsible for creating the first written English that we know about.

The truth is that language is a living, evolving thing. So like all living, evolving things it’s going to change. Ironically it’s probably changing more slowly now than it would have done in Alfred’s time, because mass communication (TV, radio and the internet) acts as a stabilising influence. (Yes, honestly, it does!)

How do we know?

We know mainly through the efforts of lexicologists – the people who create dictionaries – and some very scholarly historians of the English language. Thanks to them, it’s possible to tell stories like this one…

Dangerous liaisons

Take the word ‘danger’. In modern English it has a very specific meaning – ‘peril’ or ‘risk’. It came into the English language (like so many other words) with the Normans – but the Old French word daunger meant something quite different. If you were ‘in a person’s danger’ you were under their authority, in the feudal sense of the word – as a liege (if you were noble) or perhaps a serf (if you weren’t).

So it’s not hard to see where the modern meaning came from.

After all, if your liege lord was a complete head case he could have you clapped in irons and thrown in a dungeon. Obviously several Norman lords must have fitted the bill – not long after the Conquest we get shades of the modern sense creeping into everyday speech.

But the old meaning persisted. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales the poet talks (rather disparagingly) about the Monk, saying:

In daunger had he at his owne guise
The younge girles of the diocese

The word clearly has both meanings here (these days the Monk would definitely not pass his police check) but there’s another interesting word as well. ‘Girles’ in Chaucer’s day were young people of either sex – it was only much later that the term became exclusively female.

And new words? Well, they’ve always caused problems. Shakespeare was a notorious coiner of words which his critical contemporaries dismissed as ‘inkhorn terms’ . Many were adopted from Latin, and included (to pick a few at random) agile, critical, emulate, emphasis, demonstrate, dire, extract, horrid, meditate, modest, prodigious and vast - all of which we’d probably use without a second thought today. Just bear that in mind the next time you wince at the latest teenage fad word…!

So when you’re writing copy, remember that language is a living entity. It changes – sometimes slowly, sometimes with startling speed – and your writing may need to reflect those changes. That doesn’t excuse dull, sloppy writing – which has always been out of fashion – but it does mean we should be open and sensitive to new meanings and new words.

And willing to use them if they pack the right punch in the right place – however ‘dangerous’ they might seem…

Getting inside their heads… (2)

So how do you get inside someone’s head – and understand what’s going on there – when their whole frame of thought seems completely different from your own?

For example, if they’re a committed Christian and you’re an equally committed atheist?

OK – it’s confession time.

Very appropriate for me, really, because  I was brought up as a Roman Catholic. And in 1950s England that made me so different that I might as well have had green skin and horns.

In fact some people probably still think I have.

I mention this purely as a matter of fact – I’m not going to turn this column into a religious forum. But the truth is that a Catholic upbringing (as provided by my mother, who tended to think rather more liberally than her British contemporaries) did at least give me access to the Christian roots of European culture.

For example, last year a choir my wife and I belong to joined 3,000 other singers in the Albert Hall to perform Karl Jenkins’ Mass for Peace. And of course the words – and all their many shades of meaning and significance – were totally familiar to me. Helpful if you’re trying to sing as though you mean it. (And frankly, there isn’t any other way that’s worth a damn.)

And when, over the years, I’ve spoken with people of faith both in the UK and in other parts of the world, we start with something in common.

Which is all very well, but won’t, I suspect, convince any committed atheists to waste their time on what, for them, would seem to be an academic study of comparative religion.

So are there other reasons?

Actually – yes, there are. Because the growing ignorance of religious belief in our increasingly secular society is actually divorcing people from their own history and culture.

You don’t have to like religion, or believe in it, but you can’t afford to ignore it!

Why? Because the religious beliefs and practices of our ancestors are literally built into every aspect of our daily lives.

To pick one very annoying example, the UK tax year starts on 6 April – which seems a pretty arbitrary date.

Until you realise that up until the 18th century the 25th of March – Lady Day – was the official first day of the year. The day when all accounts were settled, and all bills paid.  The ‘Lady’ was, of course, the Virgin Mary. The Day was the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrating the first revelation of Christ’s birth.

And the 11-day difference? That’s down to the adjustment of the calendar that took place here in England in 1752. By then the old Julian calendar had got 11 days out of kilter with the actual seasons of the year, and the Gregorian calendar (instituted by Pope Gregory XIII) was brought in to replace it. Of course, many Catholic countries had adopted the calendar way back in 1582, in obedience to the Pope. (Which slightly negates the idea that the Catholic Church spends all its time in the rearguard of scientific progress…) 

Mind you, it also demonstrates how bloody-minded religious intolerance can outgun simple common sense every time. (‘We’re Protestants, we’re not going to do anything the Pope tells us even if it makes sense…’)

I won’t go on, but the truth is that anyone who makes a study of the English language and its history will quickly see how long-forgotten ideas and beliefs are woven deep into its very fabric. That can’t (and won’t) easily be altered. And if that puts you in a bad humour, remember that your ancestors thought the four humours – blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile – governed your temperament and your moods. (Have you felt bilious lately? Or are you the phlegmatic type? For myself I’ve been feeling a bit bloody…

And my conclusion?

Simple. Nothing that gives you a better understanding of how other people tick is ever, really, a waste of time.

Getting inside their heads… (1)

Face it. The thought processes of another person – even someone very close to you – are unknown territory.

So if you want to ‘get inside their head’ – well, you can’t.

But you can try. You can make the mental effort to imagine the way they think and feel. And the key word there is ‘imagine’. (Don’t try this if you don’t have an imagination…

OK, confession time. I have a big, unfair advantage. As the only child of an English father and a Danish mother, both with a love of travel, I grew up poised between two very different cultures.

Every summer I would leave the uptight, authoritarian England of the 1950s and visit my Danish family in a country that was already liberal, open, relaxed, socially caring and effectively classless.

For six weeks I would be totally immersed in a different language, a different way of thinking, and a different set of expectations.

People dressed differently, spoke a language with a smaller, harder-working vocabulary, thought differently and acted differently. They were, mostly,  far more tolerant than their English contemporaries – though I did have my first encounter with racial prejudice there, too.

It was – literally – an education.

Because it taught me, quite painlessly, that there’s always more than one way of looking at just about anything.

And that it’s possible to get on very well with a range of people who all hold very different opinions.

It also taught me to be very wary of anyone claiming to have ‘all the answers’. Including, of course, blog writers like me.

The snag is that for most people, suspicion of people who are ‘different’ is a normal part of their culture. Call it prejudice, call it self-defence, call it tribalism, call it what you like, it’s not an attitude good copywriters can afford to have (unless they’re prepared to question it, that is).

Example? OK. Over the last 25 years or so I’ve written scripts for a large number of business videos. It’s been fascinating work, taking me inside places and organisations not always open to public view. In the course of those 25 years I’ve had reason to interview senior staff at Sellafield, and to visit a laboratory conducting animal experiments. As a freelancer I could, in theory, have turned down both those jobs.

I didn’t. Because I thought it would be a lot more interesting to put my preconditioned thinking to one side and listen to what the people there had to tell me.

I’m still not convinced we have a real solution to the problem of nuclear waste. And I still have doubts about the long-term value of animal experiments. But – at the very least – I can see other points of view.

Conclusion?

Getting inside other peoples’ heads isn’t easy – but it is worthwhile. And making the effort is an essential part of creating an effective newsletter.

As the old joke has it, don’t criticise someone till you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticise them, you’re a mile away and you’ve also got their shoes…

The ‘we-we’ factor

(And US readers please note, for a UK audience that headline has a more than a touch of ambiguity…)

So what am I talking about?

Here’s a little exercise for you.

• Take ten commercial websites, at random.
• Count up the number of times the word ‘I’ (or more likely ‘we’) appears on their home page.
• If it appears once or twice, give them a score of zero.
• If it appears three to five times, give them a score of 10
• If it appears more than five times, give them a score of 100

And here’s a clue – high scores are really, really bad…

So how did they do? And, more importantly, what’s the point of the exercise?

Remember what I said in an earlier post about putting yourself in the reader’s shoes? Trying to think the same way they will think?

Picture yourself at a party, talking with a man who’s created a good first impression.

Trouble is, he only has one topic of conversation – himself.

The word ‘I’ is cropping up with monotonous regularity, in everything he says.

So how long before you make a polite excuse – and leave?

A website is really no different.

Of course the people who visit it want to know what you do. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there in the first place.

But there’s a difference between telling them what you do, and explaining what you can do for them!

What do I mean?

Well, here are two examples to compare and contrast:

At Universal Widgets we take pride in manufacturing the highest quality widgets available in the world today. Our cutting-edge digital technology ensures that every component is machined to precision tolerances, and our track record for swift, efficient delivery will bring your widget to your door within 24 hours of ordering…

Which is all very good, no doubt, but doesn’t actually tell the reader why they’d want the widget in the first place…

Is your driving position comfortable? Do you find it difficult or awkward to reach the pedals? Don’t despair – there is a solution that can be accurately adjusted to your personal needs – however individual they may be.

‘The Universal Widget is perfect – for the first time in my life, I can enjoy driving!’  Ms S A, Birmingham

Notice that in the second piece, the only time the product name appears is in the testimonial – which can often be your ‘get out of jail free’ card (see Credibility is everything below). Instead, the copy focuses on the problem the reader may have, and how the widget can solve it. It’s good to know that it’s precision built, and that delivery is quick, but those points belong way down the page.

Good copywriting, in other words, is all about getting into the mind of your audience. Of which more next time…

Credibility is everything…

It’s true – just ask the University of East Anglia. They’re currently under the media microscope for – allegedly – weighting the arguments in favour of climate change. It’s not a good place to be.

By now, of course, we all know that the idea of climate change is pure hokum. This winter’s blizzards are proof enough. (And just in case you weren’t sure, those last two sentences were in what I call ‘ironics’…)

Even so, the seeds of doubt have been sown. Credibility has been damaged. And waverers will start to swing back towards doubt. Not a desirable outcome – certainly not for the University.

And the newsletter connection?

I’m sure you’ve worked it out: be very careful what you say, and even more careful about what you claim.

Of course you have a great product. Of course your service is a winner. And of course you’re entitled to say so. But should you?

Especially when you have other people to do it for you!

You may be reading this blog anywhere in the world. And if you’re reading it in the US, you may not be shy about talking up the benefits of what you do.

Even so, I’d advise against it. There’s a better way.

Talk to your best customers. Ask them what they like about you. What they’d say if they were selling you to someone else. Better yet, what they did say when they got you that top-drawer referral. Get it written down, word for word – theirs, not yours. And get their explicit permission to quote it.

Then use the structure I described earlier, in the article called ‘Is anyone reading your newsletter?‘

Outline the problem that particular client had – but avoid using the word ‘I’ or ‘we’. (More about that later.)

Tell it as a story. Try to make it suspenseful for the reader. Outline the problem, then elaborate, until we think (as we might do when reading a thriller) ‘How can she get out of that?’

And at that point, bring in your client’s account of what happened. How you solved her problem. How you went the extra mile. How great you were.

Because she can say everything you can’t, with no holds barred. And even a UK audience (which actively dislikes people who talk themselves up!) can’t possibly object.

Credibility – sorted!

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s intolerance…

It’s true. I hate it with a passion. If I had a gun, intolerance would make me reach for it…

Yes, OK, I’m joking. But there’s a point to the joke.

Indifference is not exciting. It’s not sexy. It doesn’t provoke a response. And that’s why popular newspapers will manufacture indignation and anger even when they don’t seem appropriate.

After all, they want people to read what they’ve written.

And so, of course, do you…

Listening to the radio this morning through a slightly sleepy haze (after getting up at 5.30 for my BNI meet yesterday) two items caught my attention.

One was the Thought for the Day – yes, really. The speaker put an interesting spin on the survey of British attitudes, pointing out that growing tolerance seemed to go hand in hand with growing apathy. It’s not so much that people don’t mind what their neighbours do, it’s more that they don’t actually care.

Which is bad news for a society – and bad news for a business, too.

The second item was Obama’s State of the Union speech, berating Washington for playing political games instead of dealing with the real issues.

As usual he was passionate and convincing. After all, that’s what got him elected. Whether his proposals are effective or not remains to be seen, but boy, can he communicate!

And the lessons for us?

Passion and conviction sell – but it’s best to avoid manufacturing them. Fake emotion is worse than no emotion at all.

I write about newsletters because I passionately, truly, and actively believe that they are a fantastic way to touch the hearts and minds of your contact base. To put across things that matter about you, your values, your company, and its products and services. To show people why they’re important.

So – in your writing – don’t be afraid to show just how much you care.

It matters. A lot.

Is anyone reading your newsletter?

…or is it possible that they’re reading it, but  not getting past the first paragraph?

Would you like to be sure they do?

Then here’s a tip that works just as well in a newsletter as it does in a novel. Start with a question. Or two. Or even three.

Something that grabs your reader’s attention, and addresses a real concern.

This is a blog about writing newsletters – and about writing in general. So if you’re reading this at all, that’s a topic that interests you.

Meaning that you’ve almost certainly read this far already…

And that’s the secret.

Write to your audience. Their needs. Their concerns. Their worries.

And write about what you know – not what someone else has told you.

Above all, remember that whatever the size of your distribution list – whether it’s 17 or 17,000 – only one person at a time will be reading your email. So take care to avoid phrases like ‘as you all know’ or ‘many of you will probably have done this…’

After all, there’s not much point in personalising your newsletter to Zachary Jones and carefully adding in things like his home town and his house number if you then make it clear that your other 16,999 contacts are all getting exactly the same copy! (OK, he knows they are if he thinks about it, but it’s your job to make sure he doesn’t.)

So what will make him read through to the end?

Answer – present him with a problem he may well have encountered. Tell him you have an answer. Then take him through to a solution, step by logical step.

Use words like ‘And’, ‘But’, ‘So’, and ‘Meaning that’ to link one (short!) paragraph with the next. It helps your reader to see and follow the logical flow of your argument.

So you’d better be sure there IS a logical flow…

And finish with a clincher – something your reader can take away and think about for the rest of the day.

So what’s the clincher here?

Simple.

Your readers are looking for solutions. Give them one.

And if you’d like an example, feel free to visit my website and download my free report on ‘How Newsletters can Power Drive your Business.’

Because it really will tell you exactly how and why to write a newsletter that works for you.

And if, after that, you’d like a little professional help – please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.

Drug-crazed gay vicar in baby mercy dash? (Not any more…)

Are tabloid newspapers no longer homophobic?

Not according to Kelvin MacKenzie this morning, and I suppose he should know. He was responding to the news that the latest UK Social Trends Survey shows a very marked drop in the numbers of people who believe homosexuality is ‘wrong’ (whatever that means…)

For myself, I’m sceptical. Unlike Mr MacKenzie I think it’s a trend that could very easily be reversed. And if it is reversed, you can bet we’ll see the swift return of tabloid headlines like ‘East Benders!’ and ‘Pulpit Pouffes!’

Because the lesson tabloids teach us is that headlines work. In fact headlines, in themselves, can be significant opinion formers.

My father spent most of his working life in Fleet Street, and as a sub-editor he often had the job of putting headlines together – frequently at the last minute before the paper went to press.

This was back in the days of hot metal, when headline-writing was an even tougher discipline than it is now.

He might have just a few minutes to think of the words, work out whether a particular typeface, with a particular leading, would fit the available space, get the slug cast on the linotype machine, and slot it into the page form.

Of course, as a journalist he wasn’t allowed to use the linotype machine himself – that had to be a member of the print union. (And we all know what happened to them…)

But even in the new era of electronic compositing and online newspapers, headlines have power.

The right headline, in the right paper, at the right time, can still make or break a government. Unfortunately – not just now, but for many years – I’ve found it increasingly hard to trust the people who determine what those headlines will be.

I’m all in favour of a free press – it’s all too easy to see what happens in places where the press isn’t free – but the results aren’t much better when the ownership is in dubious, self-serving hands. Could I trust, for example, what I read in some Italian newspapers?

And the point?

Simple. Here on the net we all have the chance to establish our credentials through social networks like Twitter and Facebook. We’re talking to people who know us, in some way – either because they actually meet us on a regular basis, because they’ve been introduced by someone who knows us, or because they’ve come across us in cyberspace and like what we do.

Meaning that we can earn the right to be heard and respected – the hard way.

But with so much competition around, it’s still not easy to get your voice heard – and a sharp headline is still one of the best ways to do it (see You have GOT to read this below).

So make the effort to think of a good one – every time.

It’s time well spent. And you don’t have to cram in every tabloid cliché you can think of…

You have GOT to read this (1)

‘On Thursday, the twenty-fifth of April, at 10.32 am, Joanna decided she would have to kill David.’

If you opened a crime novel, and that was the first sentence, would you read on? Chances are that you would – because that line is a real attention-grabber.

Who is Joanna? Who is David? What is their relationship? Why does she suddenly want to kill him? And why did she make that decision at such a specific time on that particular date? Simple curiosity takes over. We want to know! And so we read the next sentence – and the next, and the next.

So when you’re writing a newsletter, a blog, or a tweet, think of that line – and think how you can make your subject line just as compelling.

Posing one unanswered question is a good trick. Posing three or four is an even better one (though tricky with just 140 characters). And building in something curious, unusual, or intriguing will work just as well. It’s worth cudgelling the brain a bit to get it right.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because in my previous life I was a (published) novelist – and the only way I got published was by listening to advice like this. In my case it came from a well-known British science fiction writer called James Blish, who did me the courtesy of demolishing one of my early stories – and then telling me how I should have written it.

It was both the cruellest and the kindest thing he could have done, and I’m very grateful.

So in my next post, I’ll be talking about what happens next – and how you follow up on a successful opening gambit.