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I’m a fan of the strange and unusual (no jokes about my mirror, please), so I have a strange fascination for those items of popular culture that don’t quite convey their intended message — the “Bloopers, Blunders and Practical Jokes” of the marketing world. You know, the horrendously ill-advised ads and misprinted news headlines Jay Leno is so fond of holding up to ridicule. One of the more famous online shrines to this kind of unintentional hilarity is Engrish.com, where readers submit ads, product labels, etc. from Japan, China, other parts of the world, all sporting jaw-droppingly wrong English usage.

Disclaimer: I have nothing but respect and admiration for any multi-lingual person in any country. However English-challenged these ad writers may be, they probably speak my language far better than I’ll ever speak theirs. They are, no doubt, highly intelligent creative professionals. But they failed to take that simple but crucial final step — checking for accuracy.

Maybe they thought, “Well, nobody here can read it anyway, but the English letters look cool.” On the Engrish.com site you’ll see photos of Japanese consumers wearing hats or shirts proudly displaying a meaningless mishmash of English words. But even if only 1% of the people in a given country can read the language being used, 1% of millions could still equal a lot of egg on the corporate face.

One of my recent favorites is this one. You’d think that a “Branding & Identity” firm would take a second look at this sign….

Okay, so finding and paying overseas proofreaders for English-language materials isn’t as easy as it sounds. But what about those of us who speak, read and write English natively? What’s our excuse for not proofreading or fine-tuning every word and idea until it delivers a precise, powerful, accurate image, either by ourselves or with the aid of a pro?

Take that extra bit of time and care. Outsource the writing/proofreading/editing if you can’t do it yourself. But take any action necessary to avoid creating your own version of Engrish.

Let Leno write his own material!

Are you or your colleagues suffering from “-ese?”

You know what I mean. Legalese, medicalese, technicalese. Jargon. Industry talk. Insider lingo.

Language is a remarkably flexible tool. It can hold vistas of ambiguity or it can focus on details with laser-like precision. In many fields precision claims top priority; a legal contract, for instance, has to have every ounce of ambiguity drained out of it, leaving only cold hard detail. before it’s safe for either party to sign on the dotted line. An article for a chemistry journal must describe scientific processes and results using the terms most fit to describe them to trained chemists. You may well be in such a profession.

But what happens when you’re at a party and Joe Q. Public says, “So, what do you do?” If you were to launch into a description of your latest molecular biology experiment or a legal argument stuffed with Latin phrases, your conversation wouldn’t last very long. And you realize that, of course, so you speak like a regular human being instead, and the other guy’s eyes light up and he says “Oh, now I get it!” You have now communicated.

It’s the same with writing. You must ask yourself who your reader is before adopting a flowery or cautious or casual or technical tone. It’s an easy thing to forget if you’re surrounded in your daily work by others who communicate in fluent industry-speak. But if you’re writing for a general audience you may suddenly find yourself up against a brick wall of non-comprehension. Don’t fall into the trap of talking to yourself or your colleagues — talk to the reader!

Just remember: When writing for a non-specialist, “-Ese” never eases anything.

This has been a friendly reminder from the Anti-jargon Squad.