Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases | Hacker News Reader

Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases

techcrunch.com

25 pointsedw51914 comments

I'd like to see "leverage" added to the list. I cringe every time I hear it when the word "use" would suffice.

(I can accept its use as a noun in the financial context, because it means more than "use" in that sense. And although the situation hasn't come up yet, I wouldn't mind its use when talking about a physical lever.)

When I hear the word "leverage", i release the safety on my browning.

1 blogger I would love to see banned from blogging -

Robin Wauters. For equating a Crunchie to both the Nobel and the Pulitzer.

Oh the irony of techcrunch criticizing people for using misleading, meaningless, and deceptive language...

You may need to have your sense of humour overhauled.

Oh believe me, I get that he was joking. My point was that that statement should never be made, even in jest.

On awards.

"Basically it’s like going around a party informing everyone that you’ve had sex with a human being last week: I’m sure it matters to you a great deal - and hopefully to the other person as well - but the rest of us likely don’t give a hoot."

Nice line.

"There are exceptions to this rule, but very few (they include ... a Crunchie ...)."

Um, I'm sure they matter a great deal to you, Mr. Wauters, but... Way to attack the symptoms of a disease you yourself have.

Yeah, I was confused by that -- was mentioning the Crunchie and the Europa Award in the same sentence as the Nobel and the Pulitzer a joke? If not, wow.

Modern day pretentious diction! Orwell would be rolling in his grave! [http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_English_Langua...]

It's like with advertising. Press Releases themselves aren't a problem, only irrelevant, boring, poorly targeted ones.

HN feature request: a domain ignore list on a per user basis.

You know if we banned ALL words from press releases, we wouldn't have to suffer through press releases at all any more.

So here is a challenge, TC, rewrite the press release for "Akamai and Delve" in a way that you find acceptable.

I have no association at all with TechCrunch, but how about this? It's basically the same content, without the TC-hated terms. (Of course, it now has a lower advertising:information ratio, and the real point of press releases is advertising rather than information. Which is why they're usually full of the sort of weaselly preening TC is complaining about.)

"Delve Networks, a provider of video platforms, announces a collaboration with Akamai Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM), whose services power rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, that will enable Delve to offer customers a comprehensive video publishing solution that includes video management and delivery including support of modern variable bit rate streaming technologies."

The only difficult bit was getting rid of the "the leader in powering X" language, which was difficult because it doesn't really mean very much. (With a less PR-speak description of what Akamai does, I think it would be quite reasonable for them to call themselves "the leader".)

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