Situated in close proximity...

Coco Chanel said: "Fashion changes, style remains".

The 1920s edition of Fowler says of situate "The short form is still common in house-agents' advertisments, but elsewhere out of favour". The 1980s revision has hardened the line: "Used by estate agents. Has no place in common usage".

I'm not sure when house agents became estate agents, but I don't think that is what Coco had in mind.

The trouble with estate agents' redundant verbiage is that it is infecting all business writing (and writing generally). "On an annual basis", "situated in", "in the event that" and so on.

Think how much more information you could show if you cut the crap.

Hale the tyop kong

I was brought up in an era when anything with a keyboard attached to it was assumed to be something for secretaries to use. At school, and even at university, essays had to be hand written and my undergraduate dissertation was 'typed up' by my sister. I first encountered typed essays at LSE when American students under my supervision handed them in (it was usually horribly over-written, but that is a separate issue). When I started work at a firm of chartered surveyors, I was chided for typing my own material. It was a secretary's job, you see?

In short, I grew up in the era before the personal computer.

The result is, I was never taught to type. Several years ago a workplace ergonomist (seriously) visited my then place of work and this was one of the things we discussed. He said that, as a fast ten-finger typist, it was too late for me to learn to type properly. I took his word for it.

I do not know if this is true, but I do know that it is the source of much frustration to me. My spelling is fine - it always has been. I have a couple of blind spots (their/there), but from my first drafts you would never know. I have to take twice as long proofing stuff than I feel I should because I am all too aware that transposition, mechanical errors (hitting O rather than I for instance) and other problems that arise from trying to do something I've not been properly trained in too fast.

Was I right to take the ergnomist's word? Is it too late to learn to type?

Acronym soup

Over the past 18 months or so I've noticed an outbreak of acronyms (OoA) in press releases (PR) sent to me, especially (but by no means exclusively (BBMNE)) from public sector organisations (PSO) trying to tell me how wonderful their spiffy new idea (SNI) is and how it is going to transform (T) everyone's work-life balance (W-LB).

And it is really starting to get on my tits, not least because it makes stuff a pig to read, when I suspect those drafting it believe the opposite (whatever the opposite of a pig is).

My friend Dom explained how it has happened: in financial reporting it is essential to be very clear who you are referring to, so if anything is going to be abbreviated then the abbreviating must appear next to it, at first mention. Fair enough - there are regulatory issues in play. But everyone has come to think financial PR is 'proper' PR and is copying.

However, when the release is for a new (say) television advertising campaign to encourage tourists to visit Sunderland, or wherever, it is difficult to imagine a more effective way of killing the pace of the story you are trying to interest an already ill-tempered (or was that just me?) news editor in.

A number of points....

"A number of"?
How many? Look it up. Find out. "A number of" is just redundant verbiage that signifies you were too lazy to find out how many.
Even if you can't find out how many, leave it out.
Compare these two sentences:
Our proposal attracted interest from a number of investment banks.
Our proposal attracted interest from investment banks.