05.05
I know it’s unfair for me to pick on a book based on a one-paragraph summary, but I was perusing the Ries & Ries site and noticed these sentences describing Al Ries’s Focus.
How do you build a brand? You narrow the focus. Nokia narrowed its focus to cellphones and became the world’s No. 1 cellphone brand. Federal Express narrowed its focus to overnight deliveries and became one of the world’s leading cargo carriers. Southwest narrowed its focus to coach service only and became America’s most profitable airline. Dell narrowed its focus to direct sales only and became the world’s leading PC manufacturer.
Let’s examine the examples of “focus” Ries provides here:
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01.06
A friend recently sent me a site listing common errors in English usage, and I’ve been looking for a relevant way of bringing it up on this site. I’ve had some fun clicking around on it.
- First, there’s the satisfaction of seeing some of my pet peeves corrected—nice to know someone shares my frustration at least. “ATM machine” and “I/me/myself” are good examples.
- Then there’s the entertainment factor—the supposedly common mistakes that I wasn’t even aware people were making. “Virii?” ”Disconcerning?”
- And lastly,
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12.15
Couldn’t finish the year out without one more photo of unnecessary quotation marks.
It really is a nice thought. It just doesn’t need to be between quotation marks.
12.07
Another one for the activity box. Thanks to Paul for pointing it out.
One of the great resources over at Wordsmith.org is a newsletter called A.Word.A.Day. Today’s word is “rhopalic,” which apparently means “having each successive word longer by a letter or syllable.” Along with the word, the site challenges readers to submit “a rhopalic newspaper headline (can be of increasing or decreasing word lengths) for a real or imaginary event.”
I gave it a go:
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09.03
Look! It’s unnecessary quotation mark’s ugly cousin, the unnecessary apostrophe. Usually only spotted preceding an “s,” this is a rare and exciting find.
08.31
I just read Landor’s press release about the identity they created for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. This is one of the more somber identity assignments imaginable, and I think they’ve done a nice job.
And, for the most part, the press release does a good job of explaining the rationale behind the design (although I was surprised it didn’t mention the blue 11’s similarity to a ‘pause’ icon, which is a potentially interesting message). But one word in the press release rubbed me the wrong way. Here’s the line:
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