Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Clichés – Gawker
And right on the heels of “things you shouldn’t write about on your blog”:http://open-dialogue.com/blog/2006/12/17/dont-write-about-it/ comes phrases that should, at all costs, be avoided in your writing, due to overuse, inane meanings, and just a general sense of tackiness.
Maybe it’s the literary snob in me, but I’ve always felt that if you’re going to write for a public audience that your writing standards should be up to the highest standards possible. Part of that is good spelling, grammar, and punctuation, of course, but perhaps the larger part is avoiding the overuse of clichés, banality, and slang in one’s writing. The use of such is, in my opinion, sloppy and shoddy, a lazy man’s way of presenting information without care for his readers. In choosing to write to a public forum, the author is taking on a responsibility, whether he realizes it or not, to ensure that his writings are both relevant and easy for the general public to read.
But then again, maybe I’m just being too snooty for my own good.
It could be said that this entry is contradictory to your previous, though. If I’m writing with my audience in mind, what if my audience does not desire to read something that is up to the highest standards possible? ~8Þ
Then they’re just stupid. :)
Seriously, though, I’ve never heard someone complain about writing being _too_ quality (unless the author uses words that are beyond his audience’s reading level). But hey, if someone wants to “dumb down” their writing for a specific niche audience who likes that style, that’s their business. They will just have to expect that their audience will be just that – niche – because a lot of people, I think, will be turned off by the kind of writing that Gawker cites. I know _I_ weary of it. ((Yeah, cuz _anecdotal_ evidence serves as a good criterion for statistical judgment.))