Stop 'curating' words!

This article really resonated with me, not least because there has been a proliferation of words to describe offsite construction in recent years. And yet most of these words and phrases are pretty meaningless to those outside our sector - and even to some of us who work in it! As an industry, I think we need to really up our game in our communications.

Be clear, talk the language of our customers and avoid the hyperbole.

'We are not curators. Of anything!

I like words. I was always taught at school that words have uses, and not meanings; and so they need to be used carefully, and with a degree of precision, to convey your message accurately.

As a result, I do sometimes get upset when people string words together on the basis that if there are a lot of them in a sentence, and if they all sound vaguely technical, the reader is going to be impressed.

One particular piece of copy I came across recently described an item of clothing as having been developed by ‘a passionate team of innovators who have engineered the latest, unique, game-changing, patented technology in order to deliver the most technically advanced product on the planet, ensuring the ultimate performance in all conditions, totally unlike anything you’ve ever worn before’.

Now that, I thought to myself, is a pair of socks I want to own!

There are, though, particular uses of words that set me off.

‘Passionate’, as it happens, is one of them. So devalued has it become in our daily parlance that it seems to have little to do with ardent desires, fervent beliefs or impassioned views. These days the word seems to be used to describe anybody with more than a passing interest in just about anything.

Of course, I blame estate agents for this proclivity for hyperbole, as they strain to make some neglected and run-down cubicle attached to the side of a crumbling bus stop sound as though it’s a highly sought-after and desirable piece of real estate that everyone is clamouring for, and that represents an astonishing future investment.

But the estate agents are not alone in this concerted lack of measure. Marks & Spencer, I noticed before Christmas, was offering ‘limited edition’ sandwiches, probably in the expectation that, gourmands that we are, we would form queues at the door, in order to lay them down for the delectation of future generations.

One of my pet hates, though, is the wanton abuse of the word ‘curate’. To me the process of curation conjures up images of studiously meticulous, bespectacled academics, carefully assembling invaluable artefacts for a forthcoming display or exhibition, in a gallery or perhaps a museum.

But today it seems to be used widely as an alternative to more mundane, and appropriate, words such as ‘choose’ or ‘select’. All I can say is that, following a meeting with a supplier, we will sit down and choose the products we really like, in the hope that the products we have selected might also be of interest to our customers. But clearly we are missing a trick, as other players in this market are actually carefully curating their helmet and clothing offerings. I’ve even read of some retailers painstakingly curating their collection of T-shirts and caps. That’s impressive!

I honestly have to ask myself whether the people who peddle such pompous and pretentious verbiage really think that the potential customer is going to believe that they put more effort and care into their product selections than do people like us who look at something, read the specifications, try it on, and then cross our fingers in the hope we’ve got it right.

We are clearly going to have to up our game. And to this end, in future buying meetings, we will be issuing our team with lint-free gloves. And horn-rimmed glasses!'

Article reproduced with thanks to Motolegends

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