by Susan Gosselin,

Vest Director of PR, and certified stealth geek and vidiot

Everybody has those things that just make them happy.  Language is one of those things for me.  I love to write.  More important, I love the power and rhythm of words.  So I was delighted to discover that the Oxford English Dictionary folks have been keeping an 100 year old archive of words that have been submitted for admission to the dictionary, but rejected each year.  In an age where proper English is supposedly on the decline, it’s fun to see the creativity that went into these words.   Some of them are really terrific.  My vote is for “nonversation,”  when you’re talking to someone who is making noise but not providing you with interesting content.  How many of THOSE have you had lately?

If you could submit a word for the dictionary, what would it be?  Mine would be Awesomitude.  My 10 year old son used it the other day to describe his day. Priceless.  Keep reading to see the list of rejects from this year..

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By Katie Earley, Copywriter

I was working on a very nice post for today, but sadly I just deleted the whole thing. On purpose.

The more I wrote, the more I talked myself out of my argument. Which is a bummer because it was a good argument before I talked myself out of it. The more I tried to prove I was right, I realized I was wrong. I tell you this because in today’s exercise in deleting I learned something worth hitting “Publish” for:

It’s good to delete things sometimes. It’s not easy, but it’s important to realize when what you thought was the right path is the wrong path. Be willing to start all over to create something better.

image: m i x y

By Katie Earley, Copywriter

I always enjoy dooce and last week she traveled to DC and shared a picture of the Lincoln Monument. Looking at the photo I was reminded of reason #143 why I want an iPhone (to take cool photos), but then I thought about the punctuation (or lack there of) in the words above President Lincoln. I know monuments aren’t always a place to follow the letter of the law on grammar, and I myself often make mistakes, but this statement would read so much more clearly with some dashes or commas. There should really be something to set off “as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the union” from the actual meat of the sentence: In this temple the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever. My suggestions are displayed below. If you know someone who could get this problem fixed, please pass it along.

images adapted from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonythemisfit/ / CC BY 2.0

By Katie Earley, Copywriter

Statistics are fun (and 64% of the time they’re made up). They can also add some pop to your copy. Nothing works like statistics to emphasize the size of the deal, the enormity of the situation, or the strength of the company. Now there’ a site that can help you find statistics to put your numbers in perspective: NumberQuote.com. Here you can enter a number, and it will give you statistics for that amount.

For example, this is our 202nd blog post. Did you know that $202 will buy a taco for every resident of Damascus City, Georgia (population 257)? Or that 202 7-Eleven hot dogs would buy 2.22 iPhones?

The stats tend to center around fast food, Apple products, Cadillacs and Alexa rankings, but it’s a start for something that has a lot of potential.

via The Copywriter Underground

image: TheImpulsiveBuy

By Katie Earley, Copywriter

We all have those brands that we are fiercely loyal to. Do you ever pause and try to remember how that loyalty developed?

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By Katie Earley, Copywriter

In a previous job, I was the marketing assistant at a non-profit and shared an office with the marketing director. Every time a new project came in, she would play with it for awhile and ask me for ideas. By sharing an office everyday we had developed a comfortable rapport, so I would not hesitate to throw out all of my absolute worst ideas. They were generally quite laughable and we would spend a good ten minutes laughing at the worst headlines and worst pictures that we could put together. Then somehow, out of the laughs, awkward pictures and horrible headlines, we would strike upon a good idea.

I was reminded of this process today by a post on Write to Done, and it’s something I often forget. When I think there are no good ideas and my head is just absolutely empty: write. Just keep writing. Once you get all of the bad ideas on paper, the good ones will follow.

image:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/nirak/ / CC BY 2.0

By Katie Earley, Copywriter

I’ve discussed before the importance of grammar and spelling while on the job, but today let’s talk about abbreviations and casual messaging. After reading this AdAge article on the subject, and after realizing that I’m not the only one disturbed by a certain famous perfectionist’s barely legible tweets, I decided maybe it was time to set some parameters.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

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By Katie Earley, Copywriter

I was a high achiever in high school. I won many awards in band. I was the star in the school play. And I nearly gave myself an ulcer to get there, but I graduated valedictorian with a perfect 4.0. There were many scholarships and awards, but there was one that I did not get that will always stick with me.

I didn’t get the “D”.

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By Katie Earley, Copywriter

Let’s add “value” to the list of over-used words that have lost all grasp of their actual meaning. After reading this article by Jason Schlossberg for Advertising Age on the abuse of “value”, I kept noticing how the world is bantered about in my life and how it’s worth a reevaluation: Value is about getting something for the price that it’s worth. It’s not about getting a great deal.

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By Katie Earley, Copywriter

Recently in my RSS feeder (I am a Google Reader junkie.) I found a couple great articles on writing from two copywriting blogs I follow.

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