This is a job for MPSIMS!
I’m teaching a class to my coworkers tomorrow and Friday about doing good email support. Aside from general suggestions from the non-techie (or even techie) people here about what you think makes good email support, I’d love to get a list of those contrary writing rules like:
eschew obfuscation
profanity sucks
don’t end your sentences with exclamation marks!
and so on . . .
Come on, guys. Help me out here. I know you can do it.
Dammit, and I keep for getting my new sig line.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good dipped in chocolate.
Its important too use the write spelling four the words ewe ewes.
Depending on what the writing will be used for, my advice is, “write like you talk.” Don’t get all hung up over the fact that you are “writing.” Just pretend you’re chatting with a friend, and jot it down that way. Usually makes it easier to read and more interesting. You can always clean up grammar, spelling, etc., later.
Let’s see:
-Never use a big word when a diminutive one will do.
-If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, avoid cliches like the plague.
And my favorite is:
-When dangling, you should not use participles.
Virtually yours,
“Feynman was wrong.
I understand Quantum Physics completely.
Anybody seen my drugs?” - A WallyM7™ .sig
Try to never use more words than you have to in attempting to get your point across or your reader may lose interest in your message before getting to the part that you really wanted them to understand.
After all, what is your hosts’ purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they’d have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. – P. J. O’Rourke
I think the good doctor here is on to something. I don’t have any specific grammar problems to add to the list, but for each one that you do list, you should use an example of it in your enumeration.
Did that make sense?
Sala, can’t you count?!? I said NO camels! That’s FIVE camels!
Read it before you send it. If it is complex, have someone else proof read it also.
Grow your own dope! Plant a man.
(Wally made me say it)
Read it. If it makes sense change it.
Keith
“I’m tired of being an object of ridicule. I wanna be a figure of fear, respect, and SEX!”
-Radar O’Reilly
A few rules I found out there on the web:
1.Do not put statements in the negative form.
2.If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
3.Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
4.Don't use no double negatives.
5.Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents.
6.Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
7.About them sentence fragments.
8.When dangling, watch your participles.
9.Verbs has got to agree with their subjects.
10.Just between you and i, case is important.
11.Don’t write run-on sentences when they are hard to read.
12.Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.
13.Try to not ever split infinitives.
14.It is important to use your apostrophe’s correctly.
15.Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.
16.Correct speling is essential.
17.A preposition is something you never end a sentence up with.
18.While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not become
ensconsed in obscurity.
19.Eschew obfuscation.
20.Avoid cliches like the plague.
21.When forming an adverb from an adjective, do it correct.
22.And avoid starting sentences with the word “and”.
23.Always avoid alliteration.
24.Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
25.Employ the vernacular.
26.Avoid ampersands & abbrev.
27.The passive voice is to be avoided.
I am so ashamed of having given Actual Advice, so to make up for that fox paw, here’s my favorite grammar joke:
Kid on a college campus goes up to a professor and asks, “Hey—where’s the bathroom at?” Professor sneers, “Young man, on this campus we do NOT end sentences with prepositions!” Kid replies, “OK—where’s the bathroom at, asshole?”
Virtually yours,
“Feynman was wrong.
I understand Quantum Physics completely.
Anybody seen my drugs?” - A WallyM7™ .sig
This is very similar to MaxTorque’s list, but I think might have a couple of additional items.
from this web page
Grammar Rules for the Unenlightened; or, How To Write Good[ul][li]Don’t use no double negatives[/li][li]Don’t never use no triple negatives.[/li][li]No sentence fragments[/li][li]Corollary: Complete sentences: important.[/li][li]Stamp out and eliminate redundancy.[/li][li]Avoid cliches like the plague.[/li][li]All generalizations are bad.[/li][li]Corollary: All statements must be specific.[/li][li]Never listen to advice.[/li][li]Take care that your verb and subject is in agreement.[/li][li]A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.[/li][li]Down with categorical imperatives.[/li][li]Avoid those run-on sentences that just go on, and on, and on, they never stop, they just keep rambling, and you really wish the person would just shut up, but no, they just keep going, they’re worse than the Energizer Bunny, they babble incessantly, and these sentences, they just never stop, they go on forever… if you get my drift…[/li][li]Never contradict yourself always.[/li][li]You should never use the second person.[/li][li]When dangling, watch your participles.[/li][li]Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only one point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the sixth century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what we now know as Poland…[/li][li]As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations.”[/li][li]Excessive use of exclamation points can be disastrous!!![/li][li]Remember to end each sentence with a period[/li][li]Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.[/li][li]Don’t use question marks inappropriately?[/li][li]Don’t be terse.[/li][li]Don’t obfuscate your theses with extraneous verbiage.[/li][li]Never use that totally cool, radically groovy out-of-date slang.[/li][li]Avoid tumbling off the cliff of triteness into the black abyss of overused metaphors.[/li][li]Keep your ear to the grindstone, your nose to the ground, take the bull by the horns of a dilemma, and stop mixing your metaphors.[/li][li]Avoid those abysmally horrible, outrageously repellent exaggerations.[/li]Avoid any awful anachronistic aggravating antediluvian alliterations.[/ul]
Prepositions are bad to end with.
“Clatu, Verrata…nector?..neck-tie?”
Eve, your advice is fine, and your joke is even better.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good dipped in chocolate.
So sorry, DrMatrix. All the "Dr"s got me all confus-ed.
Conner
No problem. I just had to point that out.
Virtually yours,
“Feynman was wrong.
I understand Quantum Physics completely.
Anybody seen my drugs?” - A WallyM7™ .sig
i think that when you are typing emale it is moportant to use punkctuasion where it is necessary otherwise sometimes all youre sentences seem to run togethere and people cant make out what your sayin and even more important is using apostrofees where they belong who likes to see youre instead of your when your reading an email right so if you do all of these thngs youre email will always be simpl and easy to read and nobody will ever flame you for youre grammer and spelling helps too cause if you dont speel right noone nose what your taling about right
The more I teaches you, the dumber you gets.
This is a repeat concept, but I like the phrasing.
Donut relay awn spill chuckers, witch arc naught prefect, end well knot ketch awl air ores.
Also, don’t verb nouns.
inconceivable? i don’t think that word means what you think it does
REMEMBER YOUR EMAIL ETIQUETTE. DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU’RE SHOUTING AT THEM!
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.