5 Things to Stop Saying Because They Mean Nothing
“I like good strong words that mean something”
Jo March, our dear heroine of Little Women, preferred impactful, authentic language over polite affectation and vague gestures of support. A woman before her time. If only she knew we are still making the same ineloquent mistakes 175 years later (and if only she wasn’t fictional and I could be friends with her).
An on-topic PR blog! Free messaging advice! You’re welcome!
What follows is a list of words/phrases I want you to stop writing, saying, sharing. By you, I mean businesses, politicians, and universities, none of whom are likely to be reading this.
“Transparency” – Transparency is something you DO, not something you say. Are you acting transparently as an organization?
If you ARE transparent, there is simply no reason to utter the words “I support transparency” OR “We want to be as transparent as possible”.
Demonstrate your transparency. Don’t say it. To state it is hollow and empty and void of all meaning.
“Affordability” – Oooooh boy. I could write an entire blog on just this word, in the year of our Lord/Election Cycle 2026. I hope it is banished in 2027 by the lovely writers over at Lake Superior State University.
There is no word more subjective than affordability. You could do ‘man on the street’ interviews tomorrow, ask tens of thousands of people – and no two people will have the same answer to what constitutes affordability: for housing, on a phone bill, on a grocery receipt, on college tuition. On DOG FOOD (40% increase over 5 years, people). What is affordable means something different to EVERYONE. We all want things to be affordable. But there isn’t a universal definition of what that looks like, and too many companies are falling into the trap of promising affordability - as are politicians who do not pull levers of control over the inflationary costs of products and services people are worried about.
“Kitchen table issues” – You’re saying the quiet part out loud. Kitchen table issues is the collective term for the topics families sit around the kitchen table and discuss – things they concern themselves with on a daily basis: The cost of groceries. Their internet connection. Health care bills. Tuition payments. Putting a new roof on the house. Why the trash didn’t get picked up. Most people are worried about the logistics and costs of their day-to-day life, and politicians since the dawn of time have sought to relate to them on the most basic level – at their kitchen table. But you aren’t actually supposed to say “My campaign is focused on the kitchen table issues.” Just…talk about them. Or better yet – ASK about them. Show you’re listening.
“We pledge to/Promise to-”/Other vaguely promising language – Remember in the early days of the pandemic when every single place you’d ever bought something from in your entire life sent you an email saying “We’re here for you”? To this day, I have no idea what any of them meant by it. They didn’t offer anything. They didn’t do anything to help. I wasn’t comforted by their vague reassurances of being there for me. What was the point? That phrase became meaningless very rapidly.
There is not a lot of crossover in PR when it comes to advising on corporate marketing and for political campaigns, but here’s a big one:
People have extremely limited attention spans. Make every word count. Don’t expend your precious capital on the fractional moment of attention you get from customers or constituents to say things like “We’re committed to Michigan’s future” “We pledge to put customers first” “We want to be more transparent” (double whammy!)
Talk about WHAT you are doing. Not why you’re doing it, not vaguely mentioning you might do something, at some point. Just SAY the thing.
“Deep dive” – I want to take a deep dive off the Capitol dome every time I hear this. Please spare me. Spare all of us.
