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Dear
Welcome to my December newsletter
Is it me or has this year flown by faster than ever? It seems like only yesterday that I was writing my list of resolutions for the year and now I’m about to write my Christmas cards.
One of those resolutions was to get my newsletter out every two months. Mmm... didn’t quite follow my own advice there. My excuse is I’ve been too busy helping clients get their newsletters out but it’s a bit weak isn’t it. It just goes to show how easy it is to let our own marketing drift. And it’s something we can’t afford to do in these tough times.
Something else we have to do is stand out from our competitors. Click here for some ideas on how to pep up your sales letters.
Alienating customers is never a good idea but are poor grammar and bad spelling enough to turn them off? According to a Royal Mail survey the answer is yes, yet the president of the Spelling Society recently suggested we should let children use text message spelling and drop the apostrophe. Click here to find out why this is a bad idea, and get some tips on how to use this important little black mark.
And to round off the year I thought I’d show you some of this year’s new words and phrases that made me smile.
Have a great Christmas and I hope 2009 will be happy and prosperous for you.
Twittering
As in the social networking site, Twitter. Not brand spanking new but it’s gained a lot more followers this year. In fact, it’s probably already passé for the really cool crowd. Stephen Fry has just started Twittering. Check him out at twitter.com/stephenfry If it’s good enough for Mr Fry then it has to be worth looking at.
Tanorexia
This describes our obsession with sun bed centres. Well there do seem to be an awful lot of orange-tinted people walking around these days!
Hopemonger
This appeared in the New York Times: “Obama rightly mocks those who dismiss him as a naïve ‘hopemonger’. Pity we don’t have more ‘hopemongers’!
Blamestorming
I love this one. Apparently it means using a meeting to discuss who’s responsible when something has gone wrong. Nice.
Textual harassment
Persistently insulting someone by text message. Shame on them.
Denture venturer
I think this is a bit cruel. It refers to older adventure travellers. Good luck to them I say.
To medal
I’ve saved the best till last. I couldn’t believe my ears when I first heard it during this year’s Olympics. An example: ‘Romero is the only British woman to medal in two different sports’. Stop meddling and keep peddling Rebecca!
It sounds totally absurd. Apparently some dictionaries do accept medal as a verb as ‘to decorate or honour someone with a medal’. However it’s a bit too close to ‘meddle’ to sound anything like serious.
For more funny, weird and downright ridiculous new words take a look at Kerry Maxwell’s ‘Brave New Words’.