Tag Archive for: imperative tense

In a tutorial article “Make the Most of Your Gatherings”, Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan make the most of the power of the imperative tense: “Go in with a game plan,” they advise. “Set up a drink station.” “Layer the lighting.” “Build a charcuterie board.” “Encourage play.” Even their party planning advice is offered in the form of “orders” – ” Personalize a playlist.” “Turn off your tech.” ” Keep the menu simple.” “Send a sweet follow-up.”

“The imperative mood in English is generally used to give an order, to prompt someone to do something, to give a warning, or to give instructions,” the American & British Academy explains. By its very nature, an imperative is directly addressed to someone, grammarphobia.com adds. Tanya Trusler of ellii.com lists five common uses of imperative verbs:

• parents telling children what to do
• teachers giving instructions to students
• employers giving instructions to employees
• people in authority, such as policy officers, telling other people what to do
• rules, guidelines, and laws

Since, at Say it For You, I’m fond of saying that teaching is the new selling in blogging for business, presenting how-to-lists and tutorials has become an important aspect of content creation. With no apparent end to the technical information available to consumers on the internet, our job is to help readers understand, absorb, buy into, and use that information.  One way to empower customers to make a decision is to help them understand the differences between various industry terms, as well as the differences between the products and services of one business compared to those offered by another. The Property Brothers’ article demonstrates how using “soft” imperatives to offer valuable tips can be a skillful way to serve up advice.

One tip for using the power of the imperative without creating “who-are-you-to-tell-me-what-to-do” resentment involves explaining the reasoning behind the “order”. In an article in USA Today, George Hobica discusses the exhortation given to airline passengers to “Place the mask over your mouth and nose”. If the reasons behind instructions given to passengers (to receive enough oxygen flow, both mouth and nose need to be under the mask) were made clear, Hobica says, people would listen more.

Use the power of soft imperatives in your blog!