Only Stephen Fry...

...could spot that 'Apple Macintosh' is an anagram of 'laptop machines'. These are the little, nerdy, crossword-solver things we writers really get a kick out of. And it's as good a reason as any to post a belated recommendation of Fry's splendid blog.

Words and design for a better world.

This is how it's done:



I found this quite captivating. It's a perfect example of being brave about tone of voice. Poverty, AIDS, malnutrition, education... are these subjects about which we can be light - even funny - and still get the message across? This little video shows that not only is this possible, it can actually be the best way to get the message across.

I love the little "(dramatic pause)" title that comes up. It's a joke. Nothing else; no clever angle. Just a gentle little joke. In a message about AIDS and poverty. Then there's the light, conversational tone of the words. It's deceptively effortless.

What these touches do, of course, is engage you. Make you want to hear more. They open the door in your head and let the rest of the message in. (It doesn't hurt that the message is so clear, so potent and so intuitive, either.)

Lastly, of course, the words live in the graphic approach, and the graphic approach is inspired by the words. It's lovely to watch. So you do - and then you hear.

(Many thanks to Tim Rich, who posted about this inspiring marriage of writing and graphic design on the 26 message board.)

Oh my Wordle

Wordle is a rather splendid thing. (Discovered, as is so often the way, via Russell.)

If you paste a chunk of text into Wordle, it creates a cloud of the most frequently used words, their sizes relative to their usage. (Like a tag cloud.)

The one here is from the first 61 pages of my novel, Rag and Bone Dreams. Goodness, a copywriter with a novel on the go. Who'd have thought it?

Why it's important to capitalise proper nouns

From the BBC website this morning. Enough said, I think.

Well, for starters...

I just saw this in my local branch. All my Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells instincts erupted in a moment.

Inside, they repeat the headline. But this time without the offending mark. So not only are they incorrect, they're also inconsistent.

Why oh why oh why, etc.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

The sentence above is really that: a sentence. Thanks to Jim Davies of writers' group 26, I've discovered this wonderful thing, as well as many other similar sentences, on a great Wikipedia page.

How can this ridiculous construction be a real sentence? Well, first you have to know that 'buffalo' is an obscure verb meaning 'bully'. (I didn't.) And, of course, that Buffalo is a city in America. (New York state, to be precise.)

That means you can construct this mad sentence, which means, in extended form:

'The buffalos from Buffalo that buffalos from Buffalo bully ('buffalo') also bully other buffalos from Buffalo.'

It may be clearer if you try the sentence with people instead of buffalo:

'Buffalo people Buffalo people buffalo buffalo Buffalo people.'

Or it may not.

This is exactly the sort of thing that can keep me from proper work for hours on end. Enjoy.