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Proofreading for Clichés and Content-free Buzzwords (CFBs)

Posted by Phil Jamieson on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 @ 03:00 PM
  
  
  
  

As part of our online proofreading services, we proofread tons of documents every day here at ProofreadNOW. We see business documents, legal documents, magazine articles, press releases, annual reports, brochures, and ads. And these are coming from some major thought leaders in the advertising business, on behalf of some giant firms, including Coca-Cola, The Ad Council, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and others. So you know we see stuff that is top-notch.

More and more, our clients are asking us to do more than a spell check or grammar check. They're looking for zing, style, and punch. Does this headline grab us? Does that paragraph keep us glued to the page?

One way we do this is through a cliché alert. We check documents for over-used phrases and buzzwords. Worn-out phrasing, such as "outside the box" and "at the end of the day" are near the top of our list. Words like "user-friendly" and "bottom line" are there too. In fact, we're working on publishing a list of clichés and CFBs that we're planning on publishing at www.ProofreadNOW.com. Here's a brief list at the start.

  • stakeholder (seems like everybody's one these days)
  • best in class (sounds like a dog-show winner)
  • think outside the box
  • at the end of the day
  • clearly

What would you add?

Tags: , , ,

Comments

go green 
 
Posted @ Monday, July 20, 2009 3:51 PM by Penny Zombik
Craft/crafting. For example:  
 
"I'm crafting a memo on that subject." 
 
This sounds pretentious. Just write the thing.
Posted @ Tuesday, August 04, 2009 4:22 PM by Mary Appleby
"Sustainable" is getting to be a baseless signifier as well.
Posted @ Wednesday, August 05, 2009 9:40 PM by Christopher Lundell
I'm getting sick of seeing "evolve" as a transitive verb, as in "By using this clever-sounding term, I hope to evolve my business."
Posted @ Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:40 PM by Amy
"On the ground," as in "What does it look like on the ground?" Or, "How many salespeople do you have on the ground in Chicago?" Or, "How many boots-on-the-ground troops fight in Afghanistan?" 
Posted @ Friday, August 14, 2009 10:55 AM by Monte Asbury
At my last corporate job, I got pretty sick of hearing "touch base," "cover the bases," and "on the same page."  
 
 
 
Also, I cringe when people overuse "envision" to make their idea sound loftier than it really is, e.g. "What I am envisioning is a quick trip to Starbucks for a Frappucino."
Posted @ Monday, August 24, 2009 3:20 PM by Jen
OK - those are all great cliches to watch for. What would you think, though, if someone were to mark them in a document you are working on? You write the document, send it for proofing, and the proofer stamps "CLICHE" wherever they're seen, as if to suggest that you remove them. Would you be upset by that? Would you think that's an intrusion? Or would you appreciate the warning, and leave some as is and remove some as well?
Posted @ Tuesday, August 25, 2009 12:13 PM by Phil Jamieson
If it's a style job and you gently recommend an alternative, I see no reason why it should be offensive to the writer. After all, he/she requested that level of "intrusion."
Posted @ Thursday, August 27, 2009 6:38 AM by Amy Dorta
these clichés really give me a chuckle, "that said" -- Well, "going forward" we can just summarily dismiss them all. Right? Or, perhaps we need to “ramp up” our efforts to eliminate them. “All things being equal.” I mean, "Do the math”?? - for those of us who at school were not very stellar in Math, this one makes us feel perhaps a little better (I personally feel like it’s supposed to for me anyway), because it doesn't really mean get out your pencil and paper and . . . "figure it out" but rather that if someone were in fact actually “there in the room” to "do the math" it would prove their point, whatever that point was. And, “doing the math" was usually not a major part of their point, but rather a mere footnote to be addressed when “time allowed.” Well, “at the end of the day,” “in a perfect world,” we wouldn’t be “having this conversation” –“at all.”
Posted @ Tuesday, January 03, 2012 2:46 PM by Ron Empleton
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