semantics | Ian M Rountree

Even when focusing on the work of creating great writing – and allowing yourself to just do the writing – divining a purpose for your work can be tough. It’s a deeper issue than just figuring out what to write about (the topic) or who to share the information you have with (the audience). Discerning the purpose for your writing is a chief part of creating truly lasting, worth-while material.

When crafting a work of words, allowing the purpose of those words to shine through is paramount to the writing’s success.

A lot of blogs talk about calls to action – big red buttons being big and red enough, carefully placed “Please subscribe” buttons being carefully placed enough. This is all flash in the pan without writing that illicits one of three reactions;

Get More of This – We want people to subscribe, bookmark, or otherwise give themselves permission to read more of our work.
Pass This On – Sharing, whether on a social network, by email, or just the impossible to quantify word of mouth.
Continue the Conversation – Whether through comments, reactive blog posts; at any level of synchrony or asynchrony.

When we’re talking about the purpose of a blog, these three categories (not topics) of response are the best indicators that we’re doing our jobs correctly. Our audience decides their own level of involvement, certainly, but it’s our writing that encourages or discourages this involvement. By considering the purpose we want to endorse with our writing on a piece-by-piece basis, we’re encouraging these responses.

When we back up our writing with an action-oriented flow, we’re much more primed for the response we receive.

Building content of any kind around a given subject is important – enough writers stress relevance and subjectivity that I don’t think it needs more discourse. However, semantic value only gets us so far. Thrust of purpose gets people moving, and because the web is becoming so much more heavily active and interactive recently, giving people a purpose for material is important when being considerate of their fractured attention.

You can be as on-topic as you want, but if people can’t find a purpose for the material you’re giving them, you’re not doing everything you can to encourage their return or their continued involvement in your work.

The active web loves linkage – it needs it, craves it, and doesn’t get enough highly-considered sources for it. From an SEO standpoint, this means that anyone from the tiniest niche blogger to the biggest celebrity acting on your material (whether sharing, conversing about, or even passively subscribing to it) gets you points you wouldn’t otherwise have.

The little increments of points add up over time. As instant as the web appears to be, the spider’s crawl is a slow dance, requiring careful choreography to navigate. No one hits it big from their first post – no one. Optimizing your blog for search requires patience, purpose, and work.

But what intriguing work!

So – what do you think I’d like you to do with this post, now that we’ve spent so much energy talking about purpose?

Image by Eustaquio Santimano.

I get a little bothered when people misuse phrases. It happens all the time, the subtle shifts in language that are caused by constant improper use of words. I get that. Linguistic drift is a fact of history, it’s how languages evolve, how dialects work, and why slang is such an important factor in determining audience when you’re writing or speaking. I respect linguistic drift.

However, I get even more bothered when people use phraseology or terminology in wilful ignorance, improperly. Like misspelling words on purpose for no other reason than impact or memorability, adding a Y here or an X there to make something pop out. I know why it’s done, from an intentional marketing perspective. I just hate when people do it to look cool.

But how much effort is the average person expected to expend on understanding etymology, phraseology or lexicography?

It’s deeper than slang. How often do we hear phrases like “this is the best thing since sliced bread” and think nothing of them?

Or, “turn the other cheek” and think it means submitting to bad the behaviour of others?

So much of what comes out of our mouths does so without the consideration of original meaning.

It’s frightening to think that even semantically unimportant phrases, which have so much communal meaning, have drifted so far from their original intent or meaning.

Sliced bread didn’t sell at all when it was introduced – it was more expensive than unsliced bread. No one wanted to pay a surcharge for labour.Who would? Sliced bread was introduced in the midst of the depression. No one had money to spare. If you can slice your own bread, why expend a limited resource on convenience?

Calling something the best thing since sliced bread, in this light, might not be implying that it’s actually a key convenience, but an unwanted, ill-planned advancement. Who wants that?

Similarly;

Turning the other cheek doesn’t mean allowing yourself to be struck again. Think about the culture of the time this quote was made; insulting someone with a slap on the cheek was done with the back of the right hand, to the right cheek. Presenting the left cheek gives the aggressor two options: either use the left hand (a cultural taboo, as the left hand is unclean, which looks bad on the aggressor), or strike the left cheek with the palm of the right hand. At the time, striking someone’s left cheek, with the palm of your right hand, was a gesture of extreme respect and filial connection.

Turning the other cheek does not present an opportunity for aggression; it forces your aggressors to either look bad and break taboo, or to make you look very good by their next actions, whether they intend it or not. It’s a high-handed action, self-serving and highly calculated.

Still, look at the usage of both of these assertions; we misuse the phrases so often, without even considering an alternate meaning, that the alternate meaning might as well not even exist.

We add secondary, even tertiary definitions to dictionaries, diluting language by making these malapropisms official. Canonizing misuse because of cultural significance. It’s not always wrong – but it’s often done without any thought of where the drift happened, or more importantly why.

Like calling a person gay, implying a state of happiness rather than homosexuality.

Like saying using impact as a noun instead of a verb; “it will impact” versus “it will have an impact”.

Like so many people misusing their, there and they’re.

Business communication relies on shared meaning and clear implication. But we’re all so guilty not only of semantic disrespect, but poor lexicography, it’s a wonder we can stand conversation at all sometimes.

Buzzwords, people. Won’t somebody think about the buzzwords?

photo by aussiegal.