Effective Communication -IV : A Word A Week

Folks,

This week’s AWAW is little different to the AWAW, you folks have seen so far. In today’s effective communication series we will talk about few words which are best if avoided. In doing so I will be giving a guideline as well of how to spot such words and avoid using in Business Communication. We can extend this style of writing beyond Business Communication.


I am referring to the word “pleonasm”. Pleonasm? I haven’t used this word at all is what most of you folks might have been thinking , well you haven’t used the word per say but most of us including me have used this in some form. Pleonasm mean "more-ness" in Greek , in plain English it mean redundant. Can you think unnecessary adjectives added to create more substance ? That is what I am referring to here. Here are some examples of pleonasm . (Redundant words italics)



1. Advance Planning (Isn’t Planning always in advance?)

2. Final Outcome (Is there any form of outcome which is not final)

3. End Product (You get the idea)

4. General Public ( I like this word, the more I read this, I begin to laugh thinking about it)

5. Joint Collaboration( I wish I could collaborate with just myself J )

6. Merge together

7. Past History ( Imagine history is future , lol)

8. Prototype Model

9. Still Continue

10. Proposed Plan



The list doesn’t stop there but look around, we use such words see such words being used by Press as well. The press thinks it is the clever way of writing to keep us folks interested and we start picking up on such redundant words and we play God (No blasphemy intended here) by creating words. Another of such culprits who create such words or such usage are Sports Commentators. They think they are creating a superlative by using such words, in effect it creates a sort of emptiness if you look at it clearly. Here is a quote from a well known Cricket Commentator when Tendulkar struck a boundary . “ Tendulkar hit this ball all the way to the boundary”, is there a way to get to boundary than going all the way? If you watch clearly all promises made by Politicians have a lot of redundant words as well , to divert your attention of the problem to create mammoth impression , well next time you start identifying this you will see what an Empty vessel they are.





For folks interested in Etymology here is the scoop



he use of more words than those necessary to denote mere sense (as in the man he said) : redundancy Latin, for this



Origin First Known Use: 1610







My recommendation for this week is please refrain using redundant words or words which are pleonasm by nature.




Reference:

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pleonasm

(C) Reserved

Effective Communication -III: A Word A Week(AWAW)

It is that time of the week to talk about a word which is misused in the wrong usage. I guess this word is being misused due of how it sounds rather than what it really means.

I am referring to the word “ad hoc”. Most of the (mis) usage of this word I have seen is using synonymously with haphazard or without any plan. On the contrary the word means for a specific purpose(when used as adverb)
It could also mean to address immediate problem or immediate need. Technically I have seen Oracle have ad hoc reports. Also extending to Business Intelligence World[1]. Ad hoc in Latin literally means “for this” and which cannot be generalized or adapted to anything else beyond the scope of current context. In Networking world All protocols are ad hoc protocol because they are designed to handle a specific problem but I guess in today’s world we have started seeing one size fit all protocol J which is moving beyond being ad hoc.

For folks interested in Etymology here is the scoop

Ad hoc as adverb[2]
Latin, for this

: for the particular end or case at hand without consideration of wider application
Origin First Known Use: 1659

Ad hoc as adjective[2]
Origin 1879
1)
a : concerned with a particular end or purpose
b : formed or used for specific or immediate problems or needs
2)
: fashioned from whatever is immediately available :

My recommendation for this week use ad hoc as a word for specific purpose as opposed to haphazard


Reference:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc
[2] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adhoc

Effective Communication II - A Word A Week (AWAW)

This blog was posted earlier on my personal blog
http://pbangole.blogspot.com on Thu Aug 26 2010

Folks,
Thanks for the feedback from last week’s column. I hope that write up was effective as I intend to be. Like most of you folks English is not my first language and I tend to make mistakes as well and am not ashamed when someone points out that. So please don’t think I am trying to point fingers at someone or any specific incident. I have compiled few words which are used/misused and would clarify in AWAW session.

Continuing our discussion on Effective communication, I have an interesting word for this week. The choice of word is interesting because as I was composing this newsletter I realized oxford decided to release few new words into the dictionary. Most common words which you and I have heard during past FIFA world cup 2010 is ”vuvuzelas”. Another word which I have used commonly which released in the dictionary is “chillax” (I can see my college buddy’s name written all over it, he added x to all commonly used words to sound more like “Asterix and Obelix” world). All these words have been added to Oxford dictionary which would mean in English(UK), it would take some time to propagate to English(US). I will write something about these two English versions of dictionary/standards in a separate column.

I have manage to write couple of paragraphs of this column without yet getting to the word of the week but setting the stage. This word has had an interesting journey from being an non-existent word to be a word to be added to one of the dictionary(Oxford, so the setup in the second paragraph). Still this word is considered non-existent word in most parts of the world. Merriam Webster’s hasn’t added the word “Prepone” to the dictionary. Oxford Dictionary online suggests this word from India with the usage of Postpone and Pre. I did a quick search of word Prepone in Webster’s dictionary and couldn’t find it . Hence not the widely accepted. Let us take about wide acceptance in a separate column. Why didn’t the word Postpone have a antonym “prepone” to begin with ? That is because the word postpone came from Latin word “Postponere”. Latin didn’t have a “Preponere”. For folks interested in Etymology here is the scoop

Etymology: Latin postponere to place after, postpone, from post- + ponere to place — more at position
Date: circa 1520


My recommendation for this week would be to avoid using this word in Business communication until it is widely accepted. Instead the right word usage is “advance” . For e.g. “I will advance my trip by a week” instead of “I will prepone my trip by a week” . You can chose to use this word in non-official communication to force it to Webster’s dictionary J. Business communication should be clear, concise and communicative (3Cs).



Reference:
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100819/od_nm/us_britain_dictionary
[2] http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0658300#m_en_gb0658300
[3] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prepone
[4] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/postpone

PS: Please don’t hesitate to forward this to your friends /colleagues, Spread the word.

(C) AWAW 2010

Effective Communication - A Word A Week (AWAW)

This Blog Entry was written in my other personal blog, For continuity I am re-posting couple of blogs here

This blog entry was blogged on Aug 23 on http://pbangole.blogspot.com/

Read on

Folks,

I have been thinking about writing this column/news letter about Effective Communication in the context of communicating with the customer. This communication forum is not to point fingers at anyone in particular but educate ourselves from how to do certain things and what not to do certain things. Most of the emails/document we write is read/reviewed by customers and does travel high up reporting chain, for example a project plan/Design documents we produce is reviewed by Directors , VPs and CXOs in some cases.



I am going to broadly classify on Words which we use in everyday communication. The words which we misuse as well. This week I am going to concentrate particularly on a (nonexistent) word which we misuse regularly. Per English dictionary(http://www.m-w.com for example) doesn’t have this word. “Updation” is the word in reference here. There is no word in American/British English dictionary. I have seen this word used regularly. The right usage should be update.



Let us refrain from using the word “updation” but instead use “Update”



For you grammar interested folks, “updation” is wrongly used as a verb , however update(the correct usage) can be used as a transitive verb as is. Update is also a noun based on the context you use for example



Update as transitive verb would be

(Origin of the usage Date: 1941)

: to bring up to date



Update as Noun would be

(Origin of usage Date: 1965)

1 : an act or instance of updating
2 : current information for updating something

(c) Reserved AWAW 2010

First Post

Interesting day to begin First Post on this blog. Today is the first day of 9th month of 2010. I am going to start blogging about words we come across in everyday life. Let us sit and analyze the usage and misuse of these words. I don't come from English speaking background. My First language is not English so if I am pinpointing something, I would one among pin-pointed as well. I started a word a week news letter /blog in my personal blog and realized that I rather maintain a separate blog for a word a week . Hence this blog.

Enjoy reading, please let me know if you have any comments/questions