When more is less

Paul W — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:51:17 +0000

One of the secrets of good copywriting is knowing when to stop. Proud creators of superb products often find this hard. It’s understandable, given the love and effort that’s gone into their masterworks. But it’s always best to admit that things have limits. Take this fictional, but sadly not atypical, stack of technobabble:

* DVXL (TM) ready
* Full 2.0 feature suite
* Cross-platform compatibility
* Cloud computing ‘out of the box’
* Deep, rich, wide content-mining options
* Plug-and-play widget performance analysis
* Multiply scalable format distribution extensions
* Optimized, extensible interface handling parameters
* And more.

You had me well before the eighth bullet point. I just don’t want any more. And these scream-inducingly unnecessary final words also of course beg the question: “and more” what? Bananas? Trilobites? Cuddly toys? It’s as if the writer planned to use ‘etc.’ but decided at the last minute to be a little more formal.

Apply the “and more” test to real life and it’s clear what a waste of words it is:

“I love you. I need you. I want you. And more.”
“And more what?”
“I dunno, just… more stuff, y’know?”

“Hey kids, we’re going to the seaside tomorrow. And more.”
“Hurray! And more what, daddy?”
“Just more, OK? Now go to your room.”

In copywriting as in life, “and more” is just two words too much.

Reductio ad absurdum

Paul W — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:30:49 +0000

It’s remarkable how little harrumphing is caused by Twitter. Elder digerati such as Stephen Fry and the excellent John Naughton seem utterly captivated by an app that, on the face of it, allows for the high-speed dissemination of inanity on a global scale. Perhaps it’s at least in part because there is something excellent about Twitter’s USP, the 140-character restriction. As text messaging – and maybe Twitter – shows, such limits make for great creativity.

Still, it’s about time someone poked a bit of fun a it. So thank goodness for The Ideas Brothers, (one of whom is a Plain Text alumnus), who have imagined where Twitter might go next. And for Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, also poking gentle fun.

Plain Text » Copywriting and technology

When more is less

Reductio ad absurdum