Showing posts with label winston churchill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winston churchill. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Copywriting moment.
The sentence I'm wrestling with ends thus:
"and will maintain the fast, high-quality production standards which it has become known for."


Except that I want it to say:
"and will maintain the fast, high-quality production standards for which it has become known."


But I still feel more comfortable with the first one, because more readers will be able to identify with it.  Do we sacrifice grammar for readability?  I'm going to side with Churchill:
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."




Later the same morning, I found this lovely confusion:
"Charlie Acuff shined in the shadow of his famous cousin Roy by staying in the Knoxville area and becoming its best-loved old-time fiddler."


How old-timey was it?  Well, it was so old-timey we even employed verb constructions to show you!  Shouldn't it be "shone"?  And by the way, how does anyone shine in someone else's shadow?
*Face-palm...