The war against plastic (words)

Good advice, generally, doesn't go out of fashion. I make no excuses for posting this memo from David Ogilvy. Nearly 40 years on, it's as important as ever.

I particularly like points 2, 3 and 4, which always remind me that the best presentations are the ones that are to the point. They get into your mind and stay there. They do this through using everyday, natural language, not what Ogilvy calls jargon and others have called "plastic words."

Plastic words have that Humpty-Dumpty quality that they mean whatever the user wants them to mean in that context - or sometimes they mean diddly-squat because the user doesn't really know what they want to say, only that a particular word gets a head-nod and ticks a box somewhere.

As the authors of that article point out, our language is polluted with these words. I often wonder what on earth we said before we started started talking about engagement, or agility or diversity. Not to mention purpose, impact, sustainability ...

Time to battle with the verbal plastic, as well as all that junk in the sea?