President’s Message:
The Gift that Keeps on Giving

by Debbie Kerr, President

Now that the season of gift giving is over, it is even more special when you receive a gift...even when you are the one who indirectly buys it.

On the other hand, my children both seem to be having a lot of tests lately. My one child is in high school, and someone seems to have finally got through to him about making study notes. He has discovered the fine art of tables, and realizes that studying can pay off. That is not to say that he always does well, but at least he knows that studying can make a difference.

Last year, in November, as part of a fundraiser, I bought myself a magazine subscription, and the first issue arrived in January. As any good reader, I thumbed through the magazine reading the articles and looking at the pictures. I sat back and relaxed. That was until my technical writing skills kicked in. Suddenly, I noticed a problem with one of the ads, and my heart started pumping, and my eyes bulged out of my head. I had spotted my hidden present.

The Ad

This was no inconspicuous ad. The Yellow Pages had an ad that took up the bottom half of two magazine pages with a cardboard insert that went between those two pages. The half-page ads that were on the bottom two opposite pages looked like typical Yellow Page ads. The half-page cardboard insert that was between the two pages had the following content on both sides of the page:

The area after the "www" is cut out. When the cardboard is over one half of the page, its phone number appears through the cut out. When the cardboard page is over the other half of the page, then the other phone number displays through the cutout.

A lot of thought went into the design, but the same thought did not go into the words.

The Initial Problem

I have to admit that I noticed more problems with the paragraph after I looked at it carefully, but what first got my attention was the incorrect use of “it’s” in the bolded sentence. Once the apostrophe is fixed, the first sentence should read, “Now, every business in the Yellow Pages™ directories has its own mini website”. Being picky, I even have a problem with this sentence, because I question whether Yellow Pages should be possessive for directories. The problem is, if you make this change, it creates another issue because it’s hard to see the apostrophe when there is a trademark symbol. Also, is Yellow Pages a proper name and, if so, then does it require an “’s” ending to make it possessive? Personally, I would have just left out the word directories and said, “Now every business in the Yellow Pages™ has its own mini website”. This eliminates the other issues, and it is just as clear.

Upon Closer Examination

Now that they had caught my interest with at least the “it’s” mistake, I was even more interested in this ad. I don’t think this is what the advertiser had in mind, but it might work in a technical communication magazine. (It will get our attention, but it will not help the vendor’s credibility.)

The next issue was the lack of capitalization of the word “internet”. In most cases, even in the spellchecker for Word, “Internet” is capitalized. I wouldn’t lose sleep over this one.

The last issue is a small one, but since I was picking something a part, I thought I would keep going, because I was now on a roll. I would change on to about in the following part of the sentence, “…to find out more information on that company including maps....”

A New Improved Ad

With all these changes, the new ad would read:

Getting a Life

I tried to share this whole adventure with my family, but they failed to see the excitement. In fact, when I smiled about it hours later, I think I scared them. They didn’t get it. I couldn’t explain it to them. It would have been easier for me to explain some of the technical things at work than the thrill of spotting a mistake. They even told me to get a life.

Strangely enough, this is my life. If I did not get this excited about a grammar mistake, then I would not enjoy what I do. It’s not like I get this excited for every grammar mistake I see or I would never get through a page of editing at work. For me, this one was special because someone spent a lot of money for that ad and it appeared in thousands of magazines. This was, well, a gift.

I even emailed the magazine to let them know what I saw. I wanted to make sure that the ad didn’t get reused. That’s what any responsible technical writer would do. I was also curious. I wanted to know who was responsible for proofing the ad. I wondered if the company submitting the ad was responsible for its content or if the magazine was also responsible for verifying that the ad was correct. Oddly enough, I have not heard back from them. I also haven’t received an offer to proofread for their magazine. Maybe there’s a cheque in the mail or a free subscription. I have already received the next month’s magazine, so I know they have not cancelled my subscription. I thought they might be afraid that I would continue to critique every issue that they sent me.

A Final Thought

I bought myself a magazine subscription to help a school raise money. In return, I got a magazine about interior design. My gift for proofreading gave me another gift—the grammar mistake in the ad. I like to think that a technical writer’s eye for detail is the gift that keeps on giving.

About Debbie Kerr (President)

In the 20 years that Debbie has been writing documentation, she has worked in a variety of industries: government, retail, software, and insurance. She is currently employed at The Economical Insurance Group in Waterloo, where she has stepped out of her traditional role of writing user guides and help files, and now writes a variety of specifications.

Debbie has been a member of the STC since 1994 and has been a council member for many years. Most recently she was The Quill editor for two years.