Communications professionals đôi lúc lại là những kẻ phá hoại ngôn ngữ. Tại sao lại thế. Tôi post lại nguyên văn bài này vì 2 lý do: Thứ nhất, bài viết này của Eric Webber khá thú vị vì ông đã nhặt ví dụ rất đắt về hệ quả ngớ ngẩn khi những kẻ làm nghề “buôn nước bọt” – nói văn vẻ là communications professionals – sử dụng ngôn ngữ cầu kỳ hoặc “sáng tác” từ mới (wordsmith). PR professional được so sánh với bọn chuyên làm rắc rối sự việc (obfuscator); nói mà không biết mình đang nói gì khiến cho người ta luôn phải đặt dấu chấm hỏi (come again? – loại câu hỏi dùng để yêu cầu ai nhắc lại cái gì mình không hiểu hoặc khó tin ) hay tệ hơn, bị gắn với tính từ sáo rỗng (pompous) hay khoa trương (bombastic). Lý do thứ 2, trong dịp trò chuyện gần đây với chú em họ xa về quyết định của nó khi nộp hô sơ thi vào khoa PR – đại học Văn Lang TP. Hồ Chí Minh, tôi nhận thấy rằng, chú này (và cả rất nhiều cô, cậu bạn khác của nó) nộp đơn học PR chỉ vì thấy nghề đó là thời thượng. Với 3 ví dụ Eric đưa ra dưới đây cộng với sự nhìn nhận về “thời thượng” thì PR là một nghề không nên theo đuổi. Vậy thực tế là gì?
Drop the Thesaurus and Nobody Gets Hurt
Come again?
Here’s what got me riled up on this subject. I was reading a story about a telecom company that has recently merged with a competitor. Keep in mind, these are two telecommunications companies. And they are represented by the world’s largest PR firm, from whence came this explanation of one of the benefits of the merger: “AT&T expects to realize related synergies with an estimated net present value of approximately $2.8 billion.”
Come again? Are you saying that the merger is going to save you a lot of money? Well then why don’t you just say that?
How about this one. Hastings, a company that sells books, music and movies has said that its goal is to “satisfy our customers’ desires for personal entertainment and information through total customer satisfaction.” Uh, yeah. They want to satisfy customers through customer satisfaction. Did I get that right?
And another, again from a communications company: “We are developing sustainable communications programs that actually revolve around what we have learned, through systems thinking, are in the customer’s best interests.”
Hang on a sec, will you, while I pull some more hair out. I know what each of those words mean individually, but when put together in that particular order, I’m at a loss.
It’s bad enough that examples like these are so common. What’s worse, though, is that people are getting paid to write or say them. Paid a lot.
We’re better than that
That’s sad, because we’re better than that. The PR business is filled with some of the smartest, most innovative people I know, but they’re too often overshadowed by the creators of language that only serves to reinforce the negative stereotype of the PR person as nothing more than an obfuscator.
I’m not saying that the local PRSA meetings have to become some sort of Algonquin Roundtable, but I do think it’s time that we as an industry start holding ourselves to higher standards. We’re supposed to be in the business of taking sometimes complicated issues and putting them into language that is easy to understand.
Instead, we’re just as likely to take a rather uncomplicated message and put it into language so hard to understand that it ends up meaningless. More than ever, I think there is a need for style, wit and — most of all — clarity.
I once worked with a woman who had a habit of using the phrase “Which is to say….” For example: “The value is immeasurable, which is to say, it’s hard to measure.” That’s an actual quote. Call me a simpleton (go ahead, I’m used to it) but if you are clear and direct, you only have to say what you mean once to get your point across.
Doing it right
American Airlines issued a press release the other day which I really liked. American now flies from JFK non-stop to Las Vegas, and the press release said: Las Vegas is a fun place to go; lots of New Yorkers like to go to Vegas; American thinks you’ll like their schedules, fares and service between the two. I paraphrased, but not much. The release said everything it needed to say in clear, simple yet still clever language, in less than a page.
Nowhere in the release did the company use a line like “we are a leading provider of unified content management solutions for the extended enterprise” — which is how Gauss Interprise likes to describe themselves.
Every time I read one of those pombastic quotes (I combined pompous and bombastic to create a new word. Like synergy; get it?) I want to make like Peter Finch’s character in the movie Network by yelling “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”
But of course, I’m a PR professional, so after careful wordsmith, what I’ll actually say is “Current market conditions have created an atmosphere of extreme personal dissatisfaction, and I propose to henceforth reject the status quo and instead pursue alternative courses of acti
on.”
