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OPINION
Words matter
AEC marketers must uphold communication standards, ensuring precision in language for clear, consistent, and defensible messaging.
F or those of you who don’t follow Merriam-Webster on Instagram, you may have missed the news. The word “irregardless” is coming to a dictionary near you. Cue the groaning. And please, make it loud! What is the English language coming to?
The great people at Merriam-Webster go on to explain their position:
Or perhaps it was a charette that included some discussion of storm water. Potato potahto you say? I think not. PUNCTUATION MATTERS TOO. I have also been presented, usually at the eleventh hour, pages of proposal copy from a project manager and each sentence is separated with two spaces (yes, I know you can use Find and Replace to fix this but honestly, why should anyone have to do that or even know it can be done? Unless you are using an actual typewriter, this is indefensible), when the rest of the proposal document uses only one. I know many highly educated professionals who refuse to use of the Oxford comma. Yet these same people are upset when their personal bio says they “enjoy cooking their family and their pets.”
Jane Lawler Smith
“The word has been in use since 1795.”
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■ “It has been used by a large number of people for a long time with a specific and identifiable meaning.” (Yes, to mean regardless!) ■ “Dictionaries define the breadth of the language, not simply the elegant parts at the top.” Whether you agree with this position or not, it is defensible, the logic is sound, and the dictionary, after all, is the authority on such matters. Now that the groaning has died down, I imagine you are asking, what does this have to do with AEC marketing? SPELLING MATTERS. I imagine at some point in time, your firm may have conducted a charrette that included some discussion of stormwater.
See JANE LAWLER SMITH, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER JANUARY 1, 2024, ISSUE 1518
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