Sadly, this is the first paragraph in an automated email I get once a week now that we have a registered puppy. I count three blatant mistakes plus several places where writing could be improved. What do you see? To be honest, it’s not the mistakes or poor writing that bug me about this. What bugs me is this is yet another example of the dangers of the set-it-and-forget-it mentality many marketers have with automated email. These emails are being sent out when triggered by an event, in this case, our puppy turning 16 weeks old...
Here’s this week’s Monday’s Mistake, a chance to learn how to avoid mistakes and strengthen your business writing through mini pop quizzes… I found this week’s example in a print magazine. Does anything about the sentence read or sound off to you? It is grammatically correct, so it’s not as if it has a mistake in it, but it does have an extra word that adds clutter. Do you see it? The word is “lengthier.” The writer already said the war was short-lived, so obviously the other conflicts were longer. That makes the word “lengthier”...
