I’m a sucker for an alliterative list.

When a client asked me to write a piece on the 28 languages now available on her company’s technology, I wrote this lead:

“Whether you speak Chinese or Czech, Korean or Catalan, Finnish or French, Tetra radios speak your language.”

Got a list? Why not alliterate a little?

“A spoonful of alliteration helps the medicine go down,” write Chip Heath and Dan Heath in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

It helps the listings go down, too.

Siddhartha Mukherjee uses this approach to communicate a list of side effects in The Emperor of All Maladies:

“The acute, short-term effects of nitrogen mustard — the respiratory complications, the burnt skin, the blisters, the blindness — were so amply monstrous that its long-term effects were overlooked.”

Help readers remember. In A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink writes that there are three reasons we’re moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age:

“Abundance, Asia, Automation”

Alliterating a short list like this serves as a mnemonic: It makes the list easier to remember, especially for listeners at TED conferences, where Pink is a frequent speaker.

“Alliterative words … give listeners’ and readers’ minds an auditory hook on which to hang a memory,” writes Sam Horn, president of Action Seminars/Consulting, “Alliterating the key words tickles our intellect and makes ideas easier to grasp and remember.”

Communicate range. Alliteration works for a range as well as a list.

In Innocent, Scott Turow writes:

“But even by the standards of somebody whose emotional temperature usually ranges from blah to blue, I’ve been in a bad way awaiting today.”

I alliterate both a range and a list in my bio:

“Ann’s workshops take her from Hollywood to Helsinki, helping communicators in organizations like NASA, Nike and Nokia polish their skills and find new inspiration for their work.”

Alliterate a list today. Have a long, random list to alliterate? Use The Alphabetizer to quickly sort your list into alphabetical order.

How can you use alliteration to make your language more lyrical?

Play with your words

Want to master the art of making your copy more creative and engaging through wordplay?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to write creative copy for your organization.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to polish your creative writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching. And find out about Ann’s next creative writing webinar.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of tipsheets on playing with your words at RevUpReadership.com.
• Learn more: Get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.

My husband used to leave the room when I turned on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” Then he’d stand behind his chair in the living room while I watched. Finally he sat down.

'EYE' IT, TRY IT, BUY IT: A rhyming triad is a shorter, sweeter, more engaging way to make your point.

When I saw him spray, delay and walk away, I knew he was hooked.

“Spray, delay and walk away” is a mnemonic Kyan Douglas used to teach men to use aftershave. Instead of dousing yourself in Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme, he suggested, spritz a little in the air, wait a moment, then step through whatever’s left.

But there’s a shorter, sweeter, more engaging way to express that idea:

“Spray, delay and walk away.”

Double your rhetorical power

“Spray, delay and walk away” uses two rhetorical devices: rhyme and triad. That doubles your rhetorical power, making your message even more eloquent, attention getting and memorable.

That’s the approach Lyris used in this slogan for a webinar on social media and email marketing:

“Simplify, unify, ROI.”

Chevrolet used this rhyming triad:

“Eye it, try it, buy it.”

And Wired used a trio of rhyming words to name its department on what’s in and out in technology:

EXPIRED, TIRED & WIRED: A rhyming triad's a great way to organize information.

How can you use a trio of rhyming words to make your message short, sweet and neat?

Play with your words

Want to master the art of making your copy more creative and engaging through wordplay?

• Rev Up Readership members: Read the whole article.
• Invite Ann’s team in to handle a special writing project.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a “Make Your Copy More Creative” workshop.
• Work with Ann to make your copy more creative in one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on playing with your words at RevUpReadership.com.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s next creative writing webinar.
• Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.

They might have seen it coming.

STORMY WEATHER: Before you adopt a slogan, think through what the opposition might do with it.

Nope, not BP of the Gulf Coast oil spill. But Sarah Palin, Michael Steele and other supporters of increased domestic oil drilling of their slogan “Drill, baby, drill.”

Don’t get me wrong. “Drill, baby, drill” is actually a fabulous slogan.

“Slogans are fabulous when they use few words (two! one used twice) to unite and signify a tribe,” writes Seth Godin, author of Linchpin.

Plus, rhymes and other “fluent” words and phrases engage people. And strong verbs, like “drill,” paint pictures in readers’ minds and convey a can-do, action-oriented mindset.

“Support it or not,” Godin writes, “you have to agree that it was a great slogan. (Until it wasn’t.)”

But did nobody consider how the opposition might use this phrase?

Among the rhymes for “drill,” according to Wylie Communications Inc.’s chief verse officer RhymeZone.com, are:

• Bill
• Fill
• Grill
• Ill
• Kill
• Pill
• Shrill

And, of course, “spill.”

Before you launch your fabulous new slogan, run it by your lawyers — then run it through RhymeZone.

Play with your words

Want to master the art of making your copy more creative and engaging through wordplay?

• Invite Ann’s team in to handle a special writing project.
• Bring Ann to your organization for a “Make Your Copy More Creative” workshop.
• Work with Ann to make your copy more creative in one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
• Get dozens of tipsheets on playing with your words at RevUpReadership.com.
• Find Ann’s out about Ann’s next creative writing webinar.
• Subscribe to our free writing tips e-zine.

A few years ago, my nephew Evan — aka one of the five most adorable boys in the world — was attending Catholic preschool.

BLAH BLAH BLAH: "Clichés are a sign of a mind at rest," says author Sol Stein. Wake up your writing — and your reader — by reinventing clichés.

It was his introduction to Jesus and heaven, and he’d been busy processing how all of this applied to his own life. When his uncle died, he wondered aloud when Jesus was going to finish fixing Uncle Carl and send him home.

When he and I sat down for a visit a few months after school started, he asked, “Aunt Ann, why is your hair white?”I answered the way I answer all the 4-year-olds who ask that question: “I don’t know, Evan. Why do you think my hair is white?”

“Because you’re going to visit Jesus?”
he ventured.

Thankfully, Evan’s guestimate has been wrong to date. But it’s not the first interesting response I’ve received about my loopy hair since it started turning white when I was 16. And since I belatedly made rock star stylist Mary Jane Van de Castle CEO of my head, may hair has been getting longer and kookier.

My sister, Lynn — the one who inherited all the good judgment in my family — has started urgently counseling headbands. Then last month, at a spa, a woman asked a question similar to my nephew’s, though less gracious:

“What’s that on your head?” she asked.
“A Chia Pet?”

Though I couldn’t take that as a compliment, I did appreciate her excellent use of analogy.

It goes without saying that my next stop was the headband store. When I showed my husband my new purchases, he said: “How nice. A Chia-management solution.”

“Darling,” I said, lovingly, “I believe you’ve just resurrected a cliché.”

What’s your least favorite cliché or buzz phrase? How can you revive that cliché to turn it into wordplay? Try:

• Reversing, combining or flipping overused expressions
• Riffing off of worn-out sayings
• Twisting tired turns of phrase

Play with your words

Want to master the art of making your copy more creative and engaging through wordplay?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to write creative copy for your organization.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a  Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to polish your creative writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching. And find out about Ann’s next creative writing webinar.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of tipsheets on playing with your words at RevUpReadership.com.
• Learn more: Get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.

Goldman Sachs. Volcanic ash. GM bailout loan paybacks.

They’re not usually the stuff that poetry is made of.

Yet American Public Media’s Marketplace reporter, Bill Radke, manages to sum up each day’s news in rhymed verse in Marketplace Minute.

Take this little ditty, from April 23:

“Goldman Sachs is in trouble
“for betting against the housing bubble,
“while they were selling opposite bets
“to clients who now have some major regrets.”

And if that’s not enough, “This American Life” commissioned a Broadway song to help explain a complicated financial scheme that, the producers say, “parallels quite closely a Mel Brooks musical.”

I’m inspired. Could you summarize the day’s news, a big issue or maybe the VP’s speech in verse?

Play with your words

Want to master the art of making your copy more creative and engaging through wordplay?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to write creative copy for your organization.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a  Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to polish your creative writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching. And find out about Ann’s next creative writing webinar.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of tipsheets on playing with your words at RevUpReadership.com.
• Learn more: Get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2011 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.

Jan. 25, 2010 — A good sound bite can help you support your points, give your story a human voice, change the pace of the piece and add creativity and color to your copy.

“Unfortunately, quotations in press releases often sound as if they were manufactured by a computer, not spoken by a human being,” says Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications Inc. “Quotes can be the most boring — not the most interesting — parts of your copy.”

A new teleseminar aims to help writers transform their quotations from blah to brilliant.

Program details

What: “Create Snappy Sound Bites,” a one-hour teleseminar (http://bit.ly/6Xs3Sv)

Why: To help communicators write sound bites that journalists and bloggers want to publish — and that reader want to read

Who: Presented by Ann Wylie (http://bit.ly/60rAFt); sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/)

When: 3 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Central, 1 p.m. Mountain, 12 p.m. Pacific) on June 10

Where: Register online (http://bit.ly/6Xs3Sv)

In this program, Wylie will share tips on how to:

• Make quotes crisp, clear and concise, and how to avoid overquoting, hiccup quotes and an irritating “bumpety-bump” formula that lulls your readers to sleep.
• Peel back your quotes to make them tighter and more interesting. As Mark Twain said, the best sound bite is “a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.”
• Write a colorful, quotable quote, and watch it get picked up by the media.
• Write attribution like a pro and use some simple tricks and rules of thumb that will give your writing polish and authority.
• Find and craft testimonials. “What others say about you and your product, service or business is at least 1,000 times more convincing than what you say, even if you are 2,000 times more eloquent,” says Dan Kennedy, author of “No B.S. Sales Success.”

Quotes:

From workshop attendees:

“Since the seminar we have all seen better results from our work that has been going out. Reporters have been responding quicker to our press releases and pitches and we’ve had increased coverage of our current west coast company event.” — Karen Halesky, Public Relations Associate, ING Direct

“An excellent teleseminar on enhancing writing skills and creating punchy sound bites that increase the likelihood of media using quotes.” — Joan Lister, president, HealthComm

“This information provided some valuable insight to the mistakes in our writing styles. Because this is something we do regularly, we may have gotten bored or lose our focus. This definitely helped me get a fresh perspective on my writing and what to do to make it more productive.” — Ashley Jennings, Beaumont Convention & Visitors Bureau

From the PRSA professional development director:

“Ann’s insights are especially valuable because she has worked on all sides of the communication ‘desk’ — as a corporate communicator, in a PR agency, as a magazine editor and as a consultant. Her workshops are always extremely well received by our members and other writers.” — Judy Voss, PRSA’s director of professional development

More information on sound bites

See Ann’s resources on writing sound bites.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc. (http://www.wyliecomm.com/), a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Her workshops take her from Hollywood to Helsinki, helping communicators at NASA, FedEx, Motorola, H&R Block and other organizations improve their skills. She’s the author of a dozen learning tools, including  RevUpReadership.com (http://bit.ly/KJ2t3), a toolbox for writers; and Wylie’s Writing Tips (http://bit.ly/6JgZLJ), a free e-zine. Her work has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills.

About PRSA:

The Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/), headquartered in New York City, is the world’s largest professional organization for public relations practitioners. The society’s members represent business and industry, counseling firms, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations. Chartered in 1948, PRSA has 116 chapters throughout the United States and extends services and professional development to the student level through the Public Relations Student Society (PRSSA) with 209 chapters on college campuses throughout the country.

For more information, contact:

Ann Wylie
Wylie Communications Inc.
816/997-8753
Ann@WylieComm.com

But acronyms can also make your copy easier to read and remember, writes Jack Napoli, if you use them to group your key ideas “into nuggets of distinction.”

MARC, for instance, is easier to remember than Mid-America Regional Council. It’s also easier to remember than an acronym that doesn’t spell out a pronounceable word — Midwestern Regional Council, or MRC, for instance.

“Can the audience recall your message 2 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 martinis later?” Napoli asks. To help your audience members, he suggests keeping your acronyms:

• Short: three to six characters long
• Meaningful: Make sure the acronym compliments the subject matter.
• Repeatable: easy to say and remember

Napoli sells the idea of using acronyms to create sticky messages in his excellent post, but he doesn’t offer any how-to’s. Here’s one approach for turning a list into a mnemonic device to help readers remember your key points:

• List the words you want to include. You might need to find potential substitutes.
• Type the first letter of each word into the online anagram server box.
• Click “get anagrams.”

The result: a meaningful acronym that helps readers codify and remember your big ideas.

Play with your words

Want to master the art of making your copy more creative and engaging through wordplay?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to write creative copy for your organization.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a  Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to polish your creative writing skills with one-on-one writing coaching. And find out about Ann’s next creative writing webinar.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. And find dozens of tipsheets on playing with your words at RevUpReadership.com.
• Learn more: Get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.

About Ann Wylie

Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc., a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Wylie is the author of RevUpReadership.com, a toolbox for writers, and Wylie’s Writing Tips, a free e-zine. She has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills, for her work.

Copyright © 2011 Ann Wylie. All rights reserved.