Do You Write Christmas/Holiday Cards?

Around this time each year, my husband and I write and send several dozen holiday cards. But I wonder whether this practice is going the way of the dodo in these modern times.

A Family Tradition?

My mom used to (and, I think, still does) write Christmas cards to a long list of family members and old friends. When I say “write,” I mean that she hand-wrote a personal note to each recipient about the season, the year’s events, etc. Some of these notes were longer, some shorter, depending on who it was. Point is, she took the time. And it took lots of time.

People sent Mom cards, too, from all over the country. We would tape them up on the walls. By the time Christmas rolled around, the walls were covered in cards, a colorful mosaic of photos and pictures.

Sometime after I graduated from college and was living on my own, I felt like I should send my own Christmas cards. So I did. Some friends sent me cards back, and others never did. It was clear that some of my friends came from the same tradition that I grew up with.

I have noticed that it’s usually the woman of the household who writes the Christmas cards. My husband writes quite a few cards himself, but I think he’s an exception to the rule.

Christmas Cards Today

I so enjoy getting Christmas cards in the mail. For one thing, it’s rare nowadays to receive anything in your mailbox other than bills and junk mail. And I do tape them up on the walls to look at throughout the season. I enjoy seeing pictures of friends' children, too, especially the ones who don't post pictures of their kids on Facebook.

I haven’t seen a trend toward e-cards for the holidays, and I hope I never do. Festive? Ugh, I think not. They just can’t compare to a real paper card that you can hold and open with your hands.

Kids These Days…

Many people under 30 don’t even have e-mail accounts—they think e-mail is for old people. With all their phones and devices, it’s hard to imagine them sitting down to write a grocery list, much less a Christmas card.

What do you think? Will holiday-card writing ultimately go the way of the dinosaur? Do you write holiday cards? Do you get as many cards back as you send out? What trends have you seen?

Having an Editor as a Friend

Apparently, once you get to know me, it’s pretty obvious that I’m an editor and proofreader by nature. It’s true. I can’t help myself. An eye for errors is as inborn as eye color.

From time to time, friends will get self-conscious about this. As far back as middle school, I had one friend wondering aloud whether I was looking disparagingly at all the spelling errors in her notes. (Remember notes? Sort of an 80s precursor to text messages.)

So I figured I would set the record straight in case anybody thinks I think less of them because they can’t spell.

Don’t Hate Me for My Typos

Sometimes friends will ask me if their mistakes or typos bother me. Like, in an e-mail that they wrote, or a Facebook post.

Do I notice your mistakes? Yes. Do I care? Not really – it’s an e-mail, not a book or other professional piece (which should be held to higher standards because their publishers, presumably, employ editors).

Would I hold mistakes against a friend? Absolutely not. I firmly believe that editing and proofreading are innate skills. Some people are good at them, and others are not. Would I hate you because you are a lousy actor, or a mediocre cook? Of course not. Same with proofreading.

Hey, Friend, Will You Proofread My Thesis for Me?

I would be delighted to proofread your resume, Dear John letter, blog entry, writing sample, etc. It makes me happy to use my talents toward making a piece of writing better. Like a cook taking pleasure in making a great meal for someone.

However, a thesis or novel is too long to edit as a favor. Sorry. Even my husband would have to pay me for that.

The Spelling Error Poem

Back in middle school, one of my friends, who knew she wasn’t a good speller, wrote an entire poem poking fun at bad spellers. In the poem, almost every word was misspelled, creating some funny rhymes along the way. It was brilliant.

Pack rat that I am, I may have even saved this poem in a box somewhere. If I ever find it, I’ll post it here to give this friend the kudos she deserves.

What About You?

Are you an editor? How do your friends and family feel about it?

How to Write Great Web Copy

People ask me about this topic a lot. Writing for the web can seem intimidating. But the basic principles of writing great web copy are very simple.

My Advice…

I’ve had two jobs as a web editor, and a third job working on an online educational product. In total, about 4 years of experience.

My bible of writing good web copy is Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Guide to Web Usability by Steve Krug. The book follows its own principle of not making you think too much. It is straight and to the point, easy to read, easy to understand. The dust jacket says the book was meant to be read through on a short airplane flight, and it can be. Actually, you can probably finish it faster if you focus on the parts you need (e.g., web copy instead of interface design).

Keep It Short and Sweet

Here is the main principle to keep in mind for web copy. People do not read web sites like they read books.

They skim. Their eyeballs flicker down the page, grabbing stand-out text. If a page goes on for too long, readers often give up, go back to Google, and search for something shorter.

I see so many web sites with long, wordy copy. It makes me sad. People are just not going to read it. I see three exceptions to this rule:

1. Blogs. If someone is reading your blog, chances are good that they enjoy your writing and will read all of it (or nearly all). This gives you license to be more verbose. It’s also why many great blogs are later turned into books.
   
   Despite what I just said, a blog is still on the web. If a blog entry carries on for screens and screens and screens, even your fans may surf on to something else. The more scrolling you force your readers to do, the more likely they will stop reading and move on.
   
   
2. “About Us,” “Company History,” and similar pages. I’m talking about pages whose express purpose is to provide copious details that a user has specifically requested (by clicking the link). Even here, it’s wise not to go into too much detail. Save the long version for the annual report or the printed brochure.
   
   
3. Tutorials. I have learned a lot from online instruction manuals, from recipes to Photoshop tutorials. As with “About Us” pages, their purpose is to provide abundant detail when there’s an excellent chance the reader actually does want to sit and read it all.

But even these three types of writing can be made more web-friendly. For tips, read on.

How Do I Keep It Short and Sweet?

Several basic tools can make web copy more readable:

• Boldface subheads. When a reader is scanning down a page, it should be as easy as possible for them to spot the parts they want to read. To that end, boldface subheads are gold.
  
  I’m not saying you should precede every single paragraph with a subhead. But I wouldn’t go longer than three or four paragraphs without one, unless it can’t be avoided.
  
  Blog entries might be an exception, depending on the blog. If you write the kind of narrative blog that reads like a short story, subheads may not make sense.
  
  
• Short, concise copy. Generally, the web is not a place to be verbose. After you write a web page, go back over it and see where your copy can be tightened up. Long paragraph? Break it up into two paragraphs. Long sentence? Break it up into two sentences. Long phrase? See if there’s a shorter way to say it.
  
  
• Short paragraphs. I cannot emphasize this enough. When someone skims a page, they do not read whole paragraphs. The shorter a paragraph is, the more likely it will be read.
  
  Think of it as a challenge for your writing skills. How concise CAN you be, when held to the fire? Got a piece of text that you think is nice and short? CAN YOU MAKE IT EVEN SHORTER and still get all your points across? I think you can.
  
  
• Inverted pyramid style. Journalists know this one. The meat and potatoes of the story should come first. Less-important details should be near the bottom. This applies to each paragraph as well as to entire articles.
  
  This is very important on the web. When a reader skims a page, they only see the first line or sentence in a paragraph. That sentence had better contain some meaty information, or else the paragraph is likely to be skipped over.
  
  The phrase “inverted pyramid style” is a visual representation of how the copy should be structured. Picture a pyramid upside down so that the wide part is at the top and the narrow part at the bottom.
  
  
• Bullets. I love bulleted and numbered lists for the web. Why? Bullets make it very easy for a reader to scan and still absorb a lot of information. Make the first part of the bullet boldface, of course.
  
  Now that I’ve written web copy for a while now, my thought process incorporates this automatically. “How can I break up this long copy into bullets?” “This seems like ordered instructions; should I make it a numbered list?”

Favorite Author Shout Out: Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is one of those authors that I keep going back to. I think I first read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series when I was about 13, and the Dirk Gently books shortly thereafter. I’ve reread them all several times, including this past month. They have amazing staying power.

You may have heard Adams described as a science fiction author. But I think his true gift was for comedy. Adams was blessed with a slightly askew brain that came up with memorably wacky ideas. Sort of like Roald Dahl for grown-ups.

Adams rocks for three basic reasons:

• Hilarious turns of phrase (the kind that make you bust out laughing so that everyone stares at you),
• A wicked gift for simile and metaphor, and
• Sheer creative genius.

Characters

Unlike my previous Favorite Author Shout Out, Emily Giffin, Adams would never win any awards for in-depth characterization. Don’t get me wrong, his characters are memorable. Who could forget Zaphod Beeblebrox, the egomaniacal two-headed President of the Galaxy? The oh-so-English Everyman, Arthur Dent? And Marvin, the depressed robot?

But Adams’ characters are more like the characters in Star Wars. Unique, unforgettable, but fairly one-dimensional. Which is fine (in both cases), because it works for the stories.

Mad Skills

Maybe it’s because I first read Adams’ books at an impressionable age. Maybe it’s because I know how deeply his fans’ loyalty runs (in high school I belonged to a bulletin board on the Prodigy internet service, devoted entirely to Adams and his fans).

But there’s something about Adams’ books that transcends mundane stuff like genre and plot and character and setting. Something that makes you look at the world sideways and feel enlightened by the perspective. Something that grabs you and talks philosophy with you all night long until you reach that dazzling mental place where your brain is on fire with ideas.

His books are not just cult classics. They’re classics.

Here are some highlights from Adams’ books. Fans will recognize them, and for those who are not yet fans, I hope they make you smile and want to read more.

From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Ford,” said Arthur.

“Yeah?”

“What’s this fish doing in my ear?”

“It’s translating for you. It’s a Babel fish. Look it up in the book if you like.”

… “The Babel fish,” said the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy quietly, “is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God.

“The argument goes something like this: ‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’

“ ‘But,’ says Man, ‘the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’

“ ‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

“ ‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”

From Life, the Universe, and Everything

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of flying.

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.

The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

***

…Zaphod heard the “Whop” sound, and it made him very nervous.

He leaned tensely against the wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew by telekinesis. He laid his fingertips against the well and felt an unusual vibration. And now he could quite clearly hear slight noises, and could hear where they were coming from –they were coming from the bridge.

He inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way down it, which was true.

***

There was a sound he couldn’t immediately identify, partly because he didn’t know the tune “I Left My Leg in Jaglan Beta” and partly because the band playing it was very tired, and some members of it were playing in three-four time, some in four-four, and some in a kind of pie-eyed pi-r-squared, each according to the amount of sleep he’d managed to grab recently.

***

Prak nodded sympathetically, and Arthur relaxed a little.

“It’s… well, it’s a long story,” he said, “but the question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. All we know about it is that the answer is Forty-Two, which is a little aggravating.”

Prak nodded again.

“Forty-two,” he said, “yes, that’s right.”

He paused. Shadows of thought and memory crossed his face like the shadows of clouds crossing the land.

“I’m afraid,” he said at last, “that the Question and the Answer are mutually exclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the other. It is impossible that both can ever be known about the same Universe.”

He paused again. Disappointment crept into Arthur’s face and snuggled down into its accustomed place.

“Except,” said Prak, struggling to sort a thought out, “if it happened, it seems that the Question and the Answer would just cancel each other out, and take the Universe with them, which would then be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. It is possible that his has already happened,” he added…

From So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

As he drove on, the rain clouds dragged down the sky after him for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him.

***

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying, “And another thing…” twenty minutes after admitting he’d lost the argument.

***

(From the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s entry about the Earth)

Tips for aliens in New York:

Land anywhere, Central Park, anywhere. No one will care or indeed even notice.

Surviving: Get a job as a cabdriver immediately. A cabdriver’s job is to drive people anywhere they want to go in big yellow machines called taxis. Don’t worry if you don’t know how the machine works and you can’t speak the language, and have large green antennae growing out of your head. Believe me, this is the best way of staying inconspicuous.

If your body is really weird, try showing it to people in the streets for money.

***

The night was uneasy with rain. The rain clouds themselves had now moved on, but the sky through which they had passed had been disturbed by them and now wore a damply ruffled air, as if it didn’t know what else it might not do if further provoked.

The moon was out in a watery way. It looked like a ball of paper from the back pocket of jeans that have just come out of the washing machine, which only time and ironing would tell if it was an old shopping list or a five-pound note.

The wind flicked about a little, like the tail of a horse that’s trying to decide what sort of mood it’s in tonight, and a bell somewhere chimed midnight.

***

He phoned the BBC and asked to be put through to his department head.

“Oh, hello. Arthur Dent here. Look, sorry I haven’t been in for six months but I’ve gone mad.”

“Oh, not to worry. Thought it was probably something like that. Happens here all the time. How soon can we expect you?”

“When do hedgehogs start hibernating?”

“Sometime in spring, I think.”

“I’ll be in shortly after that.”

“Righty-ho.”

***

Arthur… narrowly avoided being run down by McKenna’s All-Weather Haulage, and watched in horror as it ran down Fenny’s umbrella instead. The lorry swept along the motorway and away.

The umbrella lay like a recently swatted daddy longlegs, expiring sadly on the ground. Tiny gusts of wind made it twitch a little.

***

“I wonder if you’d like to buy some tickets for our raffle? It’s just a little one.”

He was being leaned over by a rather stiffly slim, middle-aged woman with a prim knitted suit and a prim little perm, and a prim little smile that probably got licked by prim little dogs a lot.

Introducing the Gender-Neutral Pronoun “Zem”

I’ve finally reached my limit. I am sick and tired of having to say “he or she” and “him or her” in situations where I need to be gender-nonspecific.

The only alternative to these cumbersome phrases has been to say “them,” which is grammatically gauche when you’re talking about just one person.

In this egalitarian modern age, there is no reason why we, speakers of English, should not have invented a gender-neutral pronoun by now.

So Here’s Mine

I suggest “zem” as a gender-neutral pronoun. The adjectival version (like “their”) would be “zeir.” Examples of usage:

• I heard we hired a new tech director, but I haven’t met zem yet. Do you know zeir name?
• Each new employee may choose the health plan that is best for zem and zeir family.

Why “zem” is awesome:

• It sounds enough like both “him” and “them” as to jog our memories of what it means, during its adoption. And “zeir” rhymes with “their” for easy mnemonics too.
• It contains the end letter of “him” and the middle letter of “her” – one letter from each, how egalitarian!
• It’s nice and short, just like the original pronouns.
• Authors can have great fun with it. Just imagine, a whole introductory chapter where a character is described with “zem,” leaving you unsure of zeir gender. The ambiguity could be a lovely literary device.
• It solves the “he or she” conundrum once and for all!

So, now that the matter is settled, you may all start using “zem” and “zeir” now. There will be a quiz at the end of the hour.

Comments invited!

Can Spelling Make or Break Elections?

Can correct spelling of a candidate’s name make or break election results? Maybe so. This year’s Alaska senate race may tell us for sure.

Earlier this year, Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski lost her primary to a challenger. Undeterred, she decided to run as a write-in candidate. It’s taking a while to count the 90,000+ write-in ballots, but so far the numbers appear to favor Murkowski.

While Murkowski deserves kudos for this ballsy maneuver, it hasn’t been smooth sailing. Her campaign ran ads to instruct voters on how to spell her name, but even Murkowski’s campaign misspelled her name in one ad. Now, spelling problems continue to plague Murkowski, who, a week and a half after the election, is still waiting to find out whether she will keep her job in the Senate.

The New York Times has an excellent write-up of the situation here.

The Letter of the Law

So far, the Alaska Division of Elections has been counting misspelled write-in votes as long as the voter’s intent is clear. For example, if a voter wrote “Murkowsky” instead of “Murkowski,” then the vote still counts. Legal precedent in Alaska has emphasized the importance of voter intent in ballot disputes.

But now Murkowski’s opponent, Joe Miller, has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the state is violating Alaska law by counting misspelled votes for Murkowski. The law states that a vote for a write-in candidate must be written “as it appears” on the candidate’s registration form.

Is Intent More Important than Accuracy?

You think editors are anal about spelling? Nobody is more anal about spelling than lawyers. Lawyers know that one misspelled name or misplaced comma can change the entire meaning of a contract.

Is intent more important than accuracy? In legal contracts, the answer would appear to be no. Laws exist to protect us. If contracts are not as accurate as possible, then they do us a disservice.

But does your vote constitute a legal contract? There certainly are enough rules involved to make it seem like a contract. Proving your U.S. citizenship, registering by a certain date prior to an election, voting only during certain hours at a specific location, etc.

Even if voting is akin to a contract, being a bad speller should not nullify your right to vote. Or should it? Do voters have a responsibility to spell a write-in candidate’s name correctly? If you think you can’t remember the spelling of your candidate’s name, is it so much to ask that you write the candidate’s name across the palm of your hand or on a cheat sheet to bring to the polls with you?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I’ll be watching the outcome of Miller’s lawsuit with interest.

What’s It Really About?

Ultimately, this case may say more about spelling than about politics. It may even set a precedent for communications. If intent is more important than accuracy, then why should any of us care about correct spelling or grammar? Would a loss for Miller equal one more nail in the coffin of the English language? Or should voting and communications be held to different standards? What do you think?

We’ll Pay You to Read Our Newspaper

The UK’s Sun newspaper is running a promotion where they hide cash money inside their newspapers for a few lucky customers to find. Just like Willy Wonka with the Golden Tickets.

“Will you find a fiver? A tenner? Or even a crisp 20-pound note inside your copy?” shouts the radio ad. “Get an early Christmas present. Only in tomorrow’s Sun!”

The Saturday we’re talking about is Saturday, November 6, 2010. So if you’re in the UK, try your luck, why don’t ya?

Bribed to Buy

It’s amazing what you can learn from listening to commercials on other countries’ radio stations (in this case, Absolute Classic Rock, which you can stream through iTunes). Usually it’s fairly mundane trivia, like “Neat, I didn’t know T-Mobile did business in the UK,” or “Wow, the Brits start their obnoxious holiday ads even earlier than we do,” or “Weird, they say ‘anticlockwise’ instead of ‘counterclockwise’ in England.”

In this case we’ve learned that UK citizens are increasingly getting their news just like Americans are. On their computers and iPhones, of course. Why else would a company bribe people to buy its newspaper?

Now, the Sun is not exactly highbrow journalism (today’s headline: “One Show Jason’s Twitter Sex Shame!”). It’s hard to imagine the New York Times ever doing such a thing. Or is it? They’re hurting financially just like every American newspaper is.

It will be interesting to see how this trend plays out in future years. Maybe we’ll see even odder bribes. “Play the Globe’s new Monopoly game. A game piece in every paper! One in three is an instant winner!” Or perhaps, “Find a Golden Ticket in your Sunday Tribune and win a tour of Blommer’s Chocolate Company along with a lifetime supply of chocolate.”