The Forum has been live for more than two months, and it’s been a hit with readers. Each day brings an impressive number of comments and often at least a few new discussion threads. But—as your most irritating boss would remind you—there’s always room for improvement.
Here are six suggestions for Forum participants:
- Don’t refer to stocks and funds by their ticker symbols or, at a minimum, not on first reference. I’ve spent my career focused on this stuff, and even I struggle to recall what many of these ticker symbols refer to.
- The same holds true for referring to phrases by their initials. Common initialisms like CEO and MBA are fine. But readers may skip over your post if it includes initialisms such as POA (power of attorney), OMY (one more year) or YMMV (your mileage may vary).
- Avoid nastiness. Your overall point may be valid, but expect to be down voted if other readers view your tone as unnecessarily harsh. It’s possible to disagree with others without slinging mud—and, indeed, your point will likely be more powerful if you’re civil.
- Avoid politics. Did you post a comment, only to see it disappear? The odds are, it was me, removing your post because it was overly political or unnecessarily nasty. If you think either all Republicans or all Democrats are children of Satan, you need to check the ingredients on that Kool-Aid you’re chugging.
- Give it a listen. I check every piece I write—including this one—by having my laptop read it back to me. It doesn’t take long, and it’s a great way to spot spelling mistakes and missed words, though it won’t help you if you’ve confused “your” with “you’re,” or you’re mixing up “their,” “there” and “they’re.”
- Give HumbleDollar’s style guide a read. Forum posts are more casual than the articles that the site runs, so I don’t expect the former to follow every one of the style guide’s rules. But perusing those rules may help you avoid some of the more obvious writing pitfalls.
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I’ve long been a foe of excessive acronym/initialism use. I usually referred to the practice as “consultant speak.” That is, confuse the reader to make yourself look like you possess some special knowledge.
When I was working, my employer would conduct annual performance reviews. One year, after a management reorganization, I was asked to list my KRAs for the upcoming year. I had no idea what a KRA was.
My supervisor told me that KRA stood for “Key Result Area.” I had no idea what a “Key Result Area” was. My supervisor explained that a “Key Result Area” was like an objective.
I asked my supervisor why I wasn’t simply asked to list my objectives for the upcoming year. As I recall, she didn’t have an answer.
Troublemaker 😉
I have concluded that the word, ” literally”, is both the most overused word and the most erroneously used, also. It doesn’t appear to matter if a highly educated pundit uses it, or someone with very little education, and so many in between.
I have heard that the United States is ” literally ” falling apart, alas, if we have a major earthquake and California breaks away , yes, then that is true. Until then, ” figuratively”, is the word, I believe.
There are far too many examples to cite here, but another example is ” Our politicians are literally running our economy into the ground,” and so forth.
I could continue, ad nauseum, i.e., ” I am literally sitting on a train, now”, etc.
It appears that the word has lost all meaning, and it is figuratively making me crazy, and thanks to my tremendous grammar school English teachers, I
think I adequate English skills, etc.
Also, sometimes this nuance does occasionally literally drive me up a wall, and I have to await the fire department to rescue me and AAA to get the car!
Personally I always liked waist and waste, especially when they show up incorrectly in the New York Times (NYT) and Washington Post (WP), or Morningstar. I hate the use of the wrong word. Once, a student used a word in the last paragraph of the paper which basically said that the entire paper and all the proofs used were pure crap.
‘if you’ve confused “your” with “you’re,” or you’re mixing up “their,” “there” and “they’re.”’
… or “it’s” (it is) with “its” (belonging to it)
And remember the deletion rule for choosing “me” vs. “I,” or “them” vs. “they,” etc.: Delete the noun, e.g., “for Alex and me” vs. “for Alex and I”? — You would say “for me” not “for I” so choose “for Alex and me.”
(Yep, I ❤️ grammar.)
My phone almost always wants to change well to we’ll. Drives me nuts.
I love grammar too but this would drive me nuts even if I didn’t!
When my phone kept wrecking my Duolingo responses, I went to keyboard settings and toggled “predictive” to off.
I read the style guide, and I recommend it to commenters as well. Thanks Jonathan.
Mea culpa on the fund symbols. I thought they were more precise, as Vanguard has so many funds, but will refrain in future.
A little surprised by the idea of having my computer read my text back to me, as I already heard it my head as I typed. On the other hand, I recently discovered that most people see pictures in their head, which I don’t, a condition called aphantasia.
What we may have heard in our heads as we typed was what we intended to be saying, not necessarily what others are going to hear in theirs when they read it. Having the computer read it seems like good advice that I hope I remember to try the next time I write something of any le