Don’t Cut Your Business Blog Vocabulary Down to Size

“How many words are there in English? It depends on how you count them…a good conservative estimate is 250,000.” Perceiving that many of our words mean practically the same thing, back in the 1930s a British writer named C.K Ogden proposed a new form of English with a vocabulary of only 850 words. While Winston Churchill liked the idea of Basic English, Roosevelt joked that Churchill’s famous speech about “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” wouldn’t have been nearly as effective couched  as “blood, work, eye water, and face water.”

As a writer and corporate blog writing trainer, I must say I prefer the English language just as it is, chock full of nuances and variety. Time4Writing.com apparently agrees: “A good vocabulary is an indispensable tool,” Time4 explains. “Just as really good mechanics can pull out the right tools…good writers can pull out the right tools at the right time to make good writing even more powerful.”

“Style is the way writing is dressed up (or down) to fit the specific context, purpose, or audience,” Kathleen Cali of Learn NC teaches. “Good writers are concise and precise, she adds,” weeding out unnecessary words and choosing the exact word to convey meaning.”

Adding variety to prose can give it life and rhythm, the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) stresses.

Life and rhythm – I can’t think of any goal more important for a business blog content writer to achieve. There’s just so much content out there – being boring is a certain path to the bottom of the heap when it comes to engaging readers and converting them to buyers. We have such a rich, rich language to work with, I tell writers.  For Heaven’s sake, use it!

C.K.Ogden, I learned, wanted to eliminate all the English words beginning with the letter Z. No, no, no, I’d protest.  When writing a business blog, be conversational, sure. But what word variety can add to a marketing blog posts is ZEST! How about spunk? Pizzazz?

Were Roosevelt still alive, I’m sure he’d tell you the same thing: Don’t cut your business blog vocabulary down to size!.