Please, no more showboating.

It’s natural to want to appear intelligent in email correspondence and report writing, but can we all please stop showing off?

If you want to be admired for your writing or, at the very least, not ridiculed, I have three tips:

1)    Less is More (see Business Time - Less in More)

2)    Stop hitting shift-F7 in Microsoft Word to find longer / more obscure / French-sounding synonyms. We know what you’re doing.

3)    Stop using obscure turns of phrase you read in the Financial Review as if everyone should know what you’re talking about. It won’t endear you to anyone, and if you stuff it up, those who DO know how it should be used will notice.

I’ve compiled some examples of people trying to look smart, as well as some common mistakes I think we could all learn from:

“Moving forward / going forward”

I ran out of fingers counting usage of this phrase at a recent presentation. Any time you feel compelled to use this, think about what it adds to the sentence. 99% of the time, it will already be clear that you’re talking about the future.

“We need to fix our economy moving forward”. Really? Because I thought you were talking about fixing it by finding a time machine and helping to avert the GFC.

“Quick, the car’s moving forward over Fido!” Fairly important to Fido’s wellbeing, so this would constitute acceptable usage.

Nip it in the “butt”

This phrase means to stop something from happening before it gains momentum, but have you ever wondered how the image of biting someone on the behind helps convey meaning?

That’s because it doesn’t! The correct phrase is “nip it in the bud”, which invokes the more relevant imagery of nipping a flower bud before it blooms.

Cognisant

Please just say “aware”, unless you’re writing to the Queen or you’re actually trying to look like a complete tosser.

Unique

Firstly, nothing can be the “most unique” of its type. There are no degrees of uniqueness – something is unique or it isn’t.

Secondly, if you use “unique”, whatever you’re referring to had better be the only one of its kind. A Cairns business recently claimed to operate from a “unique CBD location”.

I know most of its competitors also operate within the CBD, so unless they’re operating from a balloon tethered to the Bolands Centre, a different choice of words is warranted.

Of

“Would’ve” is short for “would have”, but sounds a bit like “would of”.

“Would of” doesn’t make any sense. If you write “I would of gone to the party…”, even if it’s in a text message or casual email, I’ll understand what you’re talking about but can’t promise I won’t question your intelligence.

One-letter Errors

Complimentary / Complementary: complimentary means “free of charge” or “expressing a compliment”. Complementary means “something which completes”.

Stationery / Stationary: stationery is the stuff you write on. Stationary means “not moving”.

Effect / Affect: most of the time, affect = verb, effect = noun. Just to confuse things though, “effect” can also be a verb, meaning “to bring about”.

Literally

Literally means “take this at face value”. It’s the opposite of “figuratively”.

An event organiser recently claimed to me that tickets were “literally walking out the door”. I wondered why I hadn’t already seen the tickets in question on the news, seeking freedom with their tiny ticket legs.

The event organiser above actually meant they were figuratively walking out of the door, although she needn’t have qualified it since none of us assumed the tickets had fled of their own volition.

Can you share any common errors? I’d like to see them – feel free to comment below.