‘Free gifts’ and ‘haastige spoed’: brevity vs. redundancy

Like yours probably is, my schedule is quite busy. So my intention is not to spend too much time writing this blog. A key element in coming up with copy quickly is being brief. Short sentences. Fast writing. Then again, as we say in Holland, “haastige spoed is zelden goed” (‘more haste, less speed’). But wait. Haven’t we Dutch people heard of pleonasms?

‘Haastig’ means ‘hasty’, ‘spoed’ means ‘haste’. Hasty haste? Essentially, that expression would still say the same without the pleonasm. But would the speakers of Dutch still reckon it to be suitable as a saying? “Spoed is zelden goed.” Well, it rhymes. 

“Remember, brevity means using no more words than necessary, not necessarily fewer words.” That’s a good point Brian Clark makes at Copyblogger. He gives examples like ‘free gifts’ and ‘future plans’. Gifts are always free, plans are always meant to be carried out in the future. But the point is unmistakably clear.

I remember attending a lecture where the professor said “redundancy is the lubricating oil of communication”. Mister Clark states that “redundancy remains a linguistically valid way of increasing the effectiveness of a message.”

On the other hand, we’re living in the era of the short attention span and speedy social media, so we can’t be too wordy anymore. How do you find the necessary balance? 

This is a picture about redundancy.

Further reading
[BITS] | Quality over quantity: how?

Copyblogger | Here's how brevity can crush your copy

The 4 little know-it-alls: how to grab your reader’s attention and not let go

“Once upon a time, this little guy named Communication & Information Sciences arrived at Tilburg University. He was often looked down on by other studies. He didn’t care and he always had a lot of fun. But everything comes to an end. Or, not necessarily? One day, the big bad faculty kingpins decided Communication & Information Sciences had to magically turn into four little know-it-alls.

Eventually, Business Communication & Digital Media would grow to be the one with the most students, but Text & Communication, Intercultural Communication and Human Aspects of Information Technology refused to be disheartened by that. Over the years they all have brought lots of brilliant copywriters, advisors, designers, tech whizzkids and managers to the outside world.

Sadly, of all the people who do not study communications, nobody ever understood what they were doing. But the four little know-it-alls held there heads high. They lived happily ever after.”

Are you as touched as I am? Can’t imagine your not!

It’s hard not to love hearing a little story now and then. We grow up with them and we pass them on. One fun thing to do with it is (don’t be startled) make money. Me and my fellow BITers (but far from biters, right?) study Communication & Information Sciences, known from the story – at least, by now. It is a field closely related to several disciplines of marketing. Combining knowledge from both sides with creativity and consumer savviness can lead to great things.

One way to achieve that, is storytelling. “How’s that?” you ask? Well, a story benefits your brand and/or product and/or campaign because it can…

1. “disarm listeners who don’t like pushy, feature-focused sales spiels”;
2. “relax your audience and release sales-averse tensions”;
3. “introduce your product - or service or organization - in a non-threatening way”;
4. “keep you top-of-mind. People remember up to 70% of information they learn through a story, compared to 10% relayed through statistics.”

Great stuff, right? There’s more where that came from: check out MarketCopywriterBlog for the 7 storytelling secrets of top salespeople.

If you know some interesting examples of companies using storytelling, let me know below!

Quality over quantity: how?

Question for my younger readers: ever heard of The Young Ones?
Question for my older (excuse me) readers: remember The Young Ones?

That’s right, you probably know the series about the four London-based students attempting to live together in their madhouse. Reruns for years.

Yet, they only made twelve episodes of The Young Ones.

Now that we’re into British comedy anyway: Fawlty Towers. Odds are you know this one, the legendary sitcom about the hotel ran by a chaotic John Cleese, as well.

Again, reruns for years. And again, they only made twelve episodes. In comparison with the Dutch series Oppassen!!! (321 episodes) and the Belgian series FC De Kampioenen (273), that's close to nothing.

By now I guess it’s obvious what I’m trying to say: quality over quantity. It’s not how much you do, it’s how well you do it. This principle holds for just about anything, doesn’t it?

Linguist and philosopher Grice came up with the Conversational Maxims, distinguishing Maxims of Quality (do not say what you believe to be false), Maxims of Quantity (make your contribution as informative as required), Maxims of Relevance (…be relevant) and Maxims of Manner (avoid obscurity and ambiguity, be brief).

These maxims are valid provided that conversations take place in accordance with the cooperative principle, well-known in social sciences, communication studies and linguistics. Continously switching roles, from speaker to listener and back, demands you to empathize. Of course you can ignore this, but it's better to 'obey'.

I think all of this goes for communication via social media too. If you’re on Twitter, you probaby (have) follow(ed) someone who manages to be in your timeline all day, every day, with one or two interesting tweets out of every thirty or so.

They could probaby use some rules of thumb:

1) Focus on content richness.
It’s not how often you say something, it’s what you say.

2A) Listen to each other.
Conversation, communication, whatever word you choose to use, there’s always an A and a B. Take each other into consideration in order to be relevant. As a writer, you need to take into account what your reader wants.

2B) Give and take.
Offer people something useful now and then, whether it’s something to utilize or something to think about. They’ll do the same for you. What goes around, comes around, you know 

If you have any useful additions, bring them on!