Words matter.
Punctuation matters too.
One of my wife’s favorite books is: “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”.
Subtitle: “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”.
You see why the comma in the title matters, right?
Pandas are normally fairly docile creatures.
That is… until out-of-place commas turn up.
Then:
They feed their faces. Discharge both barrels. And skedaddle.
Punctuation matters.
AND words.
Heh… words, words, words…
How about this beaut from an Upwork job I was looking at today? …
Klaviyo expert… tick!
Set up automations… tick!
“Happy for you to put your own creative flare on it.”
Uh… what?
So you… uh… want to hire an expert to burn your email marketing to the ground?
Well… I guess I can do that.
I mean… I do like fire 🔥
And if it pays well… we’re all good 🤑
Scrolling again through the matching jobs…
Found this: “Setup Cold Emails For Us To Send 500 Emails Daily”
No… don’t go looking there for oddball word usage…
(Although “Setup” IS a contender)
In the job description that follows I think they’re pandering (you’ll get this in a sec)…
“Our sales team needs to shoot about 500 emails a day. We need an expert who has done this similar setup before…”
What did these poor emails ever do to you?
Surely they don’t deserve to meet their end like this?
Although… considering the lamentable state of the cold emails that clog up my inbox…
I sometimes dream about whipping out my Smith & Wesson 629 and going all Chuck Norris on their asses.
Although… sadly… I don’t have the credentials.
Can’t say I’ve done a “similar setup before”.
But I’m sure among the millions of freelancers on Upwork… they’ll find someone with just the right skillset.
Now, fortunately…
We have this wonderful thing called “context”.
It helps us get the gist of what these word flubbers are on about.
Although I do appreciate a chuckle.
But when these things show up in job ads…
I don’t know about you…
But it gives the impression that attention to detail isn’t quite as high on their priority list as it is on mine.
While not necessarily a “NO-GO!” red flag moment…
(I know “mistakes happen”… heck! … master of mistakes here 🙋‍♂️)
But if there’s more than one of these in a job ad…
It’s an indicator there could be different understandings of what “quality” means.
And it could become a problem if we don’t get on the same page right from the start of a project.
Does this stuff bother you?
Maybe you’re not as fused about it as I am.
Maybe you are.
Maybe just reply and let me know your favorite “word whoops”.
Later, tater!
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham