I received a letter from Wing Hang Credit recently, with whom I have a mortgage. It took four people and considerable discussion to agree on what we thought the company was trying to say – including two who referred to the Chinese version and found it equally unhelpful
Archive for the ‘writing’ Category
Alan Siegel: Let’s simplify legal jargon!
March 26th, 2010
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Branding expert and one of the leading authorities on business communication, Alan Siegel, talked at TED in February on the topic of plain English.
Like us, he wants to put plain English into legal documents for government and business.
Do your vision/mission statements suck? Most do!
March 12th, 2010
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I recently was asked to teach a group of students to write a business plan.
While pulling together the material, I came across dozens of mission statements that suck.
For example, from Bank of China:
Our Vision is:
To be customer’s premier bank
Our Mission is to:
Build customer satisfaction and provide quality and professional service
Offer rewarding career opportunities and cultivate staff [...]
Juicy user manual from Mophie
February 9th, 2010
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It’s not often that I read user manuals. Most are beyond awful. So, imagine my suprise (and joy) when read the user manual for my new, sexy Mophie Juice Pack Air.
mophie juice pack air
Here’s an extract:
Here’s a rundown of why the juice pack air™ is so fantastic:
1. (Take a breath) Ergonomic, form-fitting, fully protective impact-resistant [...]
Ocean Park: Sentence construction (update)
January 28th, 2010
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Back in November 2009, we blogged about Ocean Park’s new website.
It appears someone took notice and, bless them, made our suggested corrections.
Here’s the original that we criticised:
And as it appears today:
Ocean Park staffers – you’ve missed the point. Any idiot can make corrections as suggested by a language expert. However, huge chunks of text appearing [...]
Sentence construction a major challenge for Ocean Park
November 9th, 2009
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While Ocean Park is in the midst of a huge redevelopment plan, we wonder how they can manage to construct three hotels when they have difficulty in constructing a basic sentence.
Take a look at this on Ocean Park’s website:
Strange that a corporation goes to so much trouble to design great looking graphics yet doesn’t even [...]
Dragonair: Empty promise
September 21st, 2009
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There I was sitting in Chek Lap Kok airport – Gate 81 – trying not to be too annoyed that my flight was delayed by 90 minutes when I happened to read the message on the back of my boarding pass:
Well, that made me annoyed. How can they pledge to ensure ‘all flights depart on [...]
Writing Penalty for Transport Department
September 10th, 2009
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I challenge you to understand this letter in fewer than three attempts. Sorry; no joining the challenge if the procedure is already familiar.
When your information involves expiry dates dictating what individuals can and cannot do, careful planning is needed in order to answer the readers’ questions without straining their brains.
The least informed reader will be new, both to driving [...]
Telephonic notice: say what?!!
September 9th, 2009
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A new client surprised and disappointed me this morning with their awful agreement.
Full of legalese and unplain English, it includes the following:
10 ) DELAYS. The TRAINER shall give the COMPANY immediate telephonic notice of any event which might cause a delay in the timely performance of services….
This caused me to wonder whether a text/SMS message [...]
Law firm cares about its communications
August 12th, 2009
1 Comment
I came across a very refreshing website the other day – that of law firm, Kennedys.
Here’s what they say on their homepage under a one-paragraph introduction of the firm:
It’s interesting to see these four points set out like this. Not only is the firm differentiating itself on the basis of its clear communications, they have [...]
