Copy Tip 40: Six Language Tips
I’m glad today that it’s ONLY going to be in the low 30′s (high 80′s/low 90′s F) this week after Melbourne’s record heat wave. It’s tragic to think that nearly 70 people have died here in Victoria and neighbouring South Australia during the last week from heat stress, and 30 homes have been lost in bush fires.
We can be thankful we only had power outages at our home office on Friday (part of the “load shedding” to randomly cut-off the power to stop the system over-loading)… no bush-fires, and much to be thankful for.
Anyway, back to today’s copy tips… they’re all about language.
An Australia Day funny email sent to me last week reminded me of the reason for this copy tip.
The email started out … “You know you’re Australian if …”
and had lots of amusing points, including:
- You can translate: “Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas”
- You pronounce Melbourne as “Mel-bn”
- You believe the “L” in the word “Australia” is optional
Know if you’re not the “target audience” for this funny email — Aussies — then you might not understand why some of this is funny.
(I’ll translate the first one for you in a moment).
Verbally, it’s easy to pick a tourist or overseas visitor at home here in Melbourne: they pronounce our state capital as “mel-born” — with the second half like you’d say “Jason Bourne” — rather than our rather lazy local pronunciation of “mel-bn” (the “bn” is like shortening the word “bin”)!
You get that person as a speaker on stage saying “mel-born” and instantly the audience picks up on it.
It’s noticeable.
And it feels out of place.
It reminds you they’re not “one of us”.
So when an overseas speaker comes along and says “Mel-bn” — or picks on the value of the Kiwi currency versus the Aussie currency — then it’s a great way for them to relate and build rapport … because they’re speaking the language of the audience.
Now here I don’t just mean speaking a foreign language or learning local slang and comedy.
It’s also about the type of words you use in your copy to the audience you’re writing to.
For instance, we do a lot of stuff with the travel industry, and travel agents are our audience.
We use some “travel industry” words they’re used to hearing or reading when we talk to them.
It helps us to create rapport and build trust, because it makes us be more like them.
So they relate more to us and
our message gets more attention!
Now I’ve gotta say that when, for instance, we’re talking to printers — we again use some industry terms — for the “printing industry” — to help get our message across.
And we’re pretty casual about the structure of the copy — writing like we speak — rather than what would pass for an A-grade at high school English.
When I write for other clients to their audience, such as Government ministers and CEO’s of large corporations, the style of writing is different again.
It still aims to get the same persuasive message across to the reader, but it’s more “formal” and “appropriate” for the target audience.
It even has less of a “sales” tone to it, because it’s targeted to the reader’s “WIIFM” antennae — What’s In It For Me — which of course is different for different audiences.
But a word of warning…
You’ve still got to be careful though — I think there’s a difference between being congruent and true to yourself and trying too hard to be someone you’re not.
If you’re that overseas speaker “trying too hard” to be like your audience, it looks obvious and then you’ll fall out of rapport.
You’ll lose ground.
And if you use “industry-speak” and technological terms with the wrong audience, you’ll quickly lose their interest.
Here’s an example.
I was listening to a speaker about 8 weeks ago talk about an investment product (eMini’s) and was selling a package for the audience to invest in as a money making opportunity.
Now, if the audience was full of investors, some of the terms the speaker used — I can’t remember them exactly, but they were things like “decay rates” and several other terms — might relate to the audience.
But this was an audience of entrepreneurs and small business owners — not all of them familiar with the terms.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the room who found some of the terminology confusing.
That loses the interest of your audience.
It’s just the same as if I started talking about printing a project “4/4 imposed head-to-head with a 10mm double cut” … or getting newspaper advertising “EGN, with RHP loading” … or a radio ad “BMD instead of ROS”
Unless you were a printer or familiar with newspaper or radio advertising, you’d probably have no idea what I was on about!
Unless you’re in a room full of people who you are certain know such terms, you’d keep that stuff out of what you say.
And the same for written copy: keep it out unless you know your audience will know exactly what you’re saying.
On local spelling
Another thing to watch out for in terms of “speaking their language” in written copy is using local spelling.
For instance…
US “center” vs. Australian/UK “centre”
or…
US “program” vs. UK “programme”
depending on usage/context. Using the correct spelling helps build rapport (you understand your market, it’s easier to build trust) and demonstrates empathy.
Now here on my blog, written by an Aussie in Melbourne Australia, I use our own spelling just about all of the time when I’m writing. And yet having a global audience, I try to avoid using words (like “fair dinkum”) that might not convey the same meaning for readers who aren’t also Aussies.
Yet sometimes when I’m writing to readers (even just for support tickets for my web host!) based in the US, I’ll do things like change the short date format for 31st December 2008 from 31/12/2008 (as we use in Australia) to 12/31/2008 (as used in the US).
Another good tip: it’d be worth having one of your target audience check your copy!
So now you know …
- Familiar language helps build rapport
- “Industry-speak” helps build rapport
- Trying too hard is obvious and may lose rapport
- The ‘tone’ of your copy will change with difference audiences
- Terminology should relate to your whole audience — don’t confuse ‘em, or you’ll lose ‘em
- Remember to use local customs, spelling and date formats
Oh yeah, almost forgot.
Here’s what “Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas” means:
Darren (Dazza) and Sharon (Shazza) played AC/DC (Acca Dacca) on the way to McDonald’s (Maccas)!
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