That was too long. Don't make me scroll down more than once, or twice if the writing really sparkles. That writing didn't.

It's not an article you really need anyway. You write real gud.

Corporate language—the monotonous native tongue of business—is manipulative and carefully constructed around psychological insights. It takes many forms, but always defies normal understanding in order to control. Politicians, managers, and the media toss it out like a net to drag in the public like helpless fish.

Could we strangle that cliche to death a little bit harder?

Thanks for the chuckle, eric. :-)

I agree with Jim, They better start practising what they preach hehe.

I'm glad it wasn't just me. ;-)

That made my eyes hurt a little.

Maybe they should have titled it "Don't Write Like This".

Hey Eric,
Happy December 1st. Totally random comment - but hey! I reckon it must be 4:27 am for you! Firefox told me so!

Wait, how would the guidelines for "web writing" be any different than any ol' good writing? Medium shouldn't change our standards for quality of writing!

And I concur! TOO LONG AND ROUNDABOUT! BOOOOO!

Denise, I apologize profusely for any physical, emotional and/or psychic harm created as a result of that link. I should have known better. ;-)

Brian, there's long been a school of thought that held that readers of online material tend to scan text for things like headlines, captions, keywords, etc. rather than read every word like they presumably would do with conventional printed text. And there have been some rigorous studies that support those assumptions. However, I've always thought that such is the case only because people are often seeking some specific bit of information when they visit a website, and their primary goal is to get in and get out as quickly as possible. In other words, those folks aren't reading for entertainment or pleasure. If you know that's your audience, and you know that's their purpose in visiting your site, then by all means tailor your writing to help them accomplish that goal. However, for bloggers and other writers of narratives for online display, I don't agree that their style should be any different just because of the delivery medium.

I think that's what the author of the linked article was trying to say, only she used too many words to say it.

Rachel, thanks for that totally random comment...it's good to be random!

That's why I come here; I learn something new every day. Content-free? Bah! Content cleverly disguised as a spoonfull of entertainment sugar.

Consider a secondary link from the unfortunate aforementioned rattling keyboarder.

Leet-speak. We all use it. Eric and I have both used 1337-sp34k to obfuscate words in posts on the Ant, to prevent them from showing up on search engines.

There is a fascinating and (again) confusing (japanese and cyrillic Leet-speak) entry on the Wiki-site. But leet is showing up everywhere; I was just blind to it up to now, and certainly didn't know it had a name, kind of like I just found out that "open Theism" was the name of a collection of (hardly accurate, i.e. non-biblical) beliefs about the character of God.

There is even a Leet generator site referenced.

Slow day at work. Sorry, folks.

Check it out.

That article is very long.
And there's no pictures.

I thought the cardinal rule for web writing was "be brief."
And "people like dog photos."

And "people like dog photos."

Absolutely. It really makes me question the author's credentials, if not her sanity.

Larry, I think it's interesting that the Wikipedia article you link to (which, by the way, makes for fascinating reading) gives short shrift to the particular use of leet-speak you and I have engaged in. While it discusses using cloaked terms to bypass filters -- to avoid "authoritarian censoring of illicit material," I didn't see where it acknowledged the use of the technique to avoid attracting an unwanted audience to licit content via search engines. (For anyone who's confused by what we're talking about, when you see "prøn" or another variation instead of "p o r n,"* that's leet-speak at work.) I think that's a valid topic that should be addressed in the "Sociological Aspects of Leet" section of that article.

You should update the article along those lines, you know? That's what Wikipedia's all about...

*I had to space the letters like that in order to bypass my OWN comment filter! ;-)

My favorite part of the entire article is that right after we are advised to not bullet-list our reader to death, we see...bulleted lists.