Speed kilts
If there’s one thing the legendary Cadbury’s Caramel ‘bunny girl’ TV adverts teach us (apart from keeping sinful
lust under wraps) is that it often pays to take your time and think about the
problem you face.
Working to deadlines is something
we all encounter. Some people plan their tasks ahead, allocating time in an organised fashion, never leaving it to the last minute.
Others do the opposite, constantly putting the task off and revelling in the growing panic as the deadline approaches, claiming it feeds their creative juices
The Tortoise and the Hare
 |
| Arthur Rackham's Aesop's Fables |
Ever bore of waiting for a
website to load? Fed up of clicking on things to get to the page you want? I can’t be arsed to type ‘www’ anymore, Google will find it. And it does.
On-demand is now part of our cultural make-up. Speed has seduced us.
But there is something to be said
for Aesop’s
Fable and taking the time to think about how best to solve a problem. In the end, of course, the tortoise wins
the race.
What Word does wrong
When it comes to desktop
publishing, Microsoft Word is the ubiquitous piece of software (500 million
worldwide users can’t be wrong). It helps you work fast, offering spell
checking, grammar checking – even a thesaurus if you’re stuck for words.
 |
| Microsoft Word - the enemy within? |
But buyer (and designer) beware.
Rushing headlong into Word can have unexpected consequences, one of which being
it’s tendency to lead you into an American writing style as opposed to
English.
If you want to write English don’t
fall into the trap of taking Word’s suggestion of using ‘Title Case’ for all
your headings. That’s an American style that should be avoided. Generally,
capital letters are only used on proper
names.
For example:
Professor Recommends New Reading List….
…is the wrong way to depict the
above heading.
Professor recommends new reading list….
…is the correct way to depict the
above heading.
Designers, writers and journalists
need to decide which style to use when crafting their work. Once you know what to look for, it begins to leap out of the page at you. Compare the style differences between UK newspapers and those from across the pond. It’s
the headings and sub-headings that give the game away.
If you are happy to write American,
carry on regardless. But if you’re the same kind of anorak as me, you’ll baulk
at the US style and insist that English is used.
Further reading
The anorak challenge
How many language style errors can
you spot on the following website login page?
0-3: you’re a Yankee!
4-7: you’re mid-Atlantic.
8-10: you’re a true anorak.
Author’s notes
The ‘Speed kilts’ title of this
blog was a deliberate typo to see if anyone actually reads it as ‘Speed kills’.
What did you do? Other errors and omissions are cock-ups by the writer.
