Discuss: Attack of the Zombie Copy
by Erin Kissane
- Editorial Comments
22 No Irony
The sentence appears to me to be correct. You just have to track the parallel structure properly and supply the understood element: â€?…the zombification progresses so gradually that you don’t realize it’s happening until your ‘About Us’ page begins to smell bad and [begins to] try to bite your face.â€?
I suspect that you were thinking it should read so: â€?…the zombification progresses so gradually that you don’t realize it’s happening until your ‘About Us’ page begins to smell bad and TRIES to bite your face.â€? That would have sounded nice, too.
posted at 09:11 am on October 26, 2005 by Clare Dunkle
23 You're not alone.
For those of you begging for more about this, and maybe some clout to take to your bosses, read William Zinnser’s On Writing Well. It’s up there with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.
posted at 12:12 pm on October 26, 2005 by Andrew Banks
24 Missing the point
I agree totally about good succinct writing, but not all websites are for selling or even communicating. I only reviewed the first example, no contract or sale would ever come or be expected to come from the site. It is for some kind of big contracting firm that would discover, lobby and win bids via the old boy handshake network. The last thing that management wants is any real information on the site that could be used by a competitor. The site is excellent. Excellent for the purpose of being essentially a tombstone (as in financial industry).
Now one can argue whether such a companies business model is good, or even the moral/ethical issues for the existence of companies of such ilk. Does opaque prose serve the goals of the company? If so it may be a fully successful site: for the needs of that company. Organize a march up the mall against the military industrial complex, but for the workerbee sometimes obfuscation is a requirement.
posted at 12:57 pm on October 26, 2005 by Sam Murphy
25
not all websites are for selling or even communicating. I only reviewed the first example, no contract or sale would ever come or be expected to come from the site. It is for some kind of big contracting firm that would discover, lobby and win bids via the old boy handshake network. The last thing that management wants is any real information on the site that could be used by a competitor.
I must disagree. I’m not sure which example you’re referring to, but the assumption that a large contracting company doesn’t need to communicate with potential clients, potential employees, journalists, investors, etc., seems odd to me. I’ve done work for some very large companies in consulting and technology, and those companies really needed their websites to communicate to all the audiences I mention above.
But let’s set the business argument aside for a moment and assume that you don’t want to communicate real information. There’s a pretty simple course of action: don’t say anything. Talk about something else. Because the truth is, the publication of jargony, fluffed-up nonsense does communicate—it says that you don’t care about your readership and that you probably don’t understand what you’re talking about. Seriously, I appreciate your point, but I really don’t think there’s a place for this kind of language in a good communication plan.
posted at 01:20 pm on October 26, 2005 by Erin Kissane
26 Re: Missing the Point
I would agree with Sam. The nuance that is missing in Erin’s response is that sites that use obscured content still communicate. The communication is not the content of the words, but the way that words are used. ‘Win-win’, ‘vertical market’, ‘qango’, ‘dime piece’ and ’23 skidoo’ all convey the user’s comfort and familiarity with the private, shared speech of closed groups. The source of these phrases’ power is their arbitrary quality, so once a closed group realizes that those outside their circle have picked up on the term, they always lose power. That may be when they need to be excised. But don’t be surprised if clients insist on what seems murky text. This is based on work I’ve done with international aid organizations, banks, ministries and the music industry over the past decade.
incidentally, this is closely related to ideas about why jokes work: they also always presuppose knowledge of a situation or characteristic of a thing, and if you don’t have that knowledge, the joke doesn’t work. Simplifying a joke by explaining the context robs it of its power, too.
posted at 03:01 pm on October 26, 2005 by daniel donaldson
27 Politics and the English Language
I’m reminded of George Orwell’s famous essay “Politics and the English Language”. The essay was written in 1946, but it still rings true today. Perhaps more true today, as publishing anything (mindless or otherwise) is as simple as pushing “submit”.
http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html
posted at 03:17 pm on October 26, 2005 by Ryan Hayes
28 How about this?
I agree with the author, but HuhCorp do it nice. :-)
posted at 04:55 pm on October 26, 2005 by Nikolay Spassov
29 A nitpick and a compliment.
<nitpick>
“…the zombification progresses so gradually that you don’t realize it’s happening until your “About Us” page begins to smell bad and try to bite your face.”
Shouldn’t “try” be “tries”?
</nitpick>
Excellent article. I’ve worked on academic sites where the text could easily have been produced by the Postmodernism Generator
[http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/]; I’ve attacked more than my fair share of zombies. Thanks for both a laugh and an acknowledgement of zombie copy.
posted at 03:43 am on October 27, 2005 by Ruth BenDor
30 Babble
I’ve been guilty of shuffling down dark hallways in the past. But I couldn’t resist a rant when I came across this babble on a website (the link will take you to the rant on my blog – not the original text).
posted at 08:12 am on October 27, 2005 by Ben Askins
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21 Irony?
Am I misreading things, or is there a grammatical error in the sentence quoted in the snapshot?
posted at 06:48 am on October 26, 2005 by Steve Pugh