All posts tagged microcopy

How to write in faux legalese

Editing a sales brochure recently I came across this line and many more like it:

‘If required [Company name] can therefore provide an introduction to a solicitor.’

This is what George Orwell hated. It is an unnecessarily inflated way to say something simple. Look at all the bits that the writer did not need:

Does your web site suffer from the vuvuzela effect?

I couldn’t help laughing at a gag on the radio yesterday. It was a Classic FM style spoof ad: ‘Relax,’ said the deep male voice, ‘to the soothing sound of … Vuvuzela Moods.’

If you have no idea what a vuvuzela is, I’m hazarding a guess that you don’t follow football. Switch on any broadcast of the 2010 World Cup and the first thing you hear is the blaring, persistent, invasive drone of what sounds like thousands of cheap plastic horns being raspberried into deafeningly by thousands of untrained lips all at the same time.

Which is what it is.

You are your web site

I want to give you money.
Imagine it. I want to give you money – by signing up to become a paying member on your web site. So I find your site and look for the quickest, easiest way to get to the sign up page.
But I can’t find it. Sometimes you’re talking about signing up, [...]