A NEW FOUR-LETTER WORD

They’re everywhere.

Kindles fingered during el trips.  Dog-eared library books read on buses.  Even standing commuters, somehow, managing to peruse a page or two in before business starts.

More than occasionally, books sneak into the workplace. 

There’s a tongue-in-cheek app that disguises tomes in PowerPoint presentations on desktops, ready to close when a manager appears. 

More seriously, a number of companies today boast book clubs, voluntary associations of employees who read and review and discuss selected volumes. 

There’s even an Ohio-based Books@Work nonprofit that deliberately matches nearby college and university professors with companies that want to start, not a book club, but an employee development and idea-sharing habit.

For those of us who devour the word, digital and printed, somehow those ideas aren’t enough.  Sure, we all have to put in eight to 12 hours a day getting stuff done.  And time to squeeze in a book chapter can’t always  fit into the schedule.  At night and on weekends, there’s so much to do that reading – whether literature or business – loses.

But why not dedicate a business hour or two each week to reading?  Not just magazines and news, but literature and non-fiction that will make a difference.  Asking employees to skim and discuss a tome can begin to create the kinds of environments we thrive in, develop the types of colleagues who are curious and communicate well with others, build teams that step up to those big hairy goals we all strive for. 

It’s not too much to ask of a book, is it?

MARATHONING IS GOOD FOR YOU ...

We can’t wait to dig into the second season of “Orange is the New Black.”

And according to Netflix (a blame-worthy originator of the trend), 61 percent of its subscribers admit to similar yearnings for serial sessions.

Practicing binge-viewing is simple:  Download or stream TV seasons from your favorite purveyor, and watch for two to three hours.  And despite Newton Minow’s criticisms of the tube as a vast wasteland, a number of psychological professionals claim it’s no longer just a dreadful self-indulgence.

Think about their reasons:

  • It’s a social experience (i.e., we usually watch with others)
  • We watch one show, much like the way we’d read a top-flight novel … in sessions.
  • The shows are actually good.  [Okay, okay:  We know folks who don’t like Breaking Bad.  But who could argue with House of Cards?  Or Mad Men?  Or … ?]
  • It’s our selection, one not fueled by advertising or specific time slots.

In our heart of hearts, though, we wish one thing:  That we could transfer the experience of eyeballing the screen to eyeballing a book.  Our volunteering experiences with grade-schoolers have uncovered some incredulous-to-us issues with reading, even spelling out words.  It’s not just limited to kids either.  About half of US adults can’t peruse an eighth-grade level book.

Those stats impact everything we do.  The question then becomes, “how do we best entice employees and consumers and other constituencies to not only keep up with and understand our messages, but also actively enjoy the experiences?”  Ideas more than welcome at cbyd.co.

IN DEFENSE OF FANCYPANTS* ... SOMETIMES

The just-finished Scripps-Howard spelling bee got us thinking.

[As did the two winning words:  Feulletion and stichomythia.]

Whatever happened to big, sometimes elegant words in today’s communications … great tongue twisters like grandiloquent or right-on descriptors such as innocuous?

Is it because:

  • we’re reduced to 140 characters or less,
  • our attention span is split into seconds, not minutes,
  • we text everything to everybody, or
  • we read and talk in short bursts?

We submit it’s due to all of the above – and none.  The College Board, in its effort to make SATs more indicative of success, has dropped obscure-isms, and instead substituted words that shift definition in context (‘synthesis’ is one).   And in the mid-aughts, Princeton psychologist Daniel Oppenheimer picked a number of texts and replaced simple phrases with flowery language, using both as writing samples for 70+ students to evaluate.  The results?  No duh.  As language complexity increased, rated opinions of the authors’ intelligence decreased.

Our argument:  That there are valid times when the word nerd in us appears.  No, it’s not because we need to impress our audience.  Nor do we want to sound smarter.  It’s just that words are the basis of our business – and, because of that, we deliberately choose those phrases that nail the situation and the event.  Many of us write for the ear, so “live” and “inhabit” will resonate differently, depending on the circumstance.  And contrast the meanings (both literal and figurative) of “angry” with “furious” or “splenetic”; they’re all different, best used in different ways. 

Why not take advantage of our rich language – and our sesquipedalian instincts? 

 

*Tina Fey, we’re sorry.