Tag: Writing

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Changed history forever

People often try to fluff up the importance of an event or person by saying it “changed history,” “changed the course of history,” or “changed history forever.” (Or something along those lines, you get the idea.) There’s just one problem with that type of phrase: it’s completely, 100% wrong.

History is stuff that has already happened, or the study of stuff that’s already happened. No matter what you do today – no matter how important or how much it upsets the expectations one might have for events to come – unless you’ve invented time travel and actually gone back in time and changed the past you have not changed history at all.

What one usually means to say here is that something happened that had a major impact and events would unfold differently than one would have expected.

For instance, Abraham Lincoln “changed history” by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. But, of course, he didn’t change history at all. He did something that had an immense impact at the time, and that would have a ripple effect that lasts to this day. It was enormously important. But, and this is crucial, he did not change history one tiny little bit. He made history, but he didn’t change it. History, as Lincoln knew it, remained the same. But the future was as of yet unwritten, and so our history is what happened as a result of his actions.

In short, “changed history” is a lazy, awful phrase. Don’t use it.

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9 phrases we should stop seeing in tech journalism

  • “This reporter” – Just use the first person. It might have worked for Edward R. Murrow, but with tech journalism – particularly blogs – it sounds like a ridiculous affectation. If you wouldn’t say it out loud when retelling a story, don’t write it. (And if you would say this out loud when telling a story, seek professional help.)
  • “The company told Acme Publication” – Bullshit. The publication is an abstract entity. Nobody “tells a publication” anything. People talk to reporters, and it’s OK to actually acknowledge that a human exchange took place rather than subsuming the reporter’s place in a story to a drone in the service of a publication. It’s 2012, embrace 1st person voice already.
  • “The company said in a statement” – OK, sometimes (but very rarely) there’s an excuse for using this. However, I don’t really care for quoting company statements. Few things scream “rehashed press release” more than just throwing in quotes from press releases/statements. Most publications I’ve written for have strict policies against using quotes from press releases. Either talk directly to the source and try to get more than is in the press release, or just don’t bother quoting them at all.
  • “Future plans” – This is just a pet peeve. All plans are future plans. Just say plans. (You also don’t need to indicate that something is your personal opinion. Just say “my opinion,” OK?)
  • “Smith believes that” – Really? Are you a psychic? I didn’t think so. It’s impossible for a reporter to know what a source thinks. Maybe the source really believes their company is going to have a great quarter despite losing 2/3rds of their engineering team and having no cash on hand to pay the rest of the engineering team and sales folks. Steve Ballmer may believe that the iPhone has “lost its cool.” More likely, they’re bullshitting you. It’s OK to quote a source saying they believe something, but asserting that they believe something is sloppy.
  • “Exclusive” – No one cares.
  • “Anything-killer” – I’ve probably done this myself, so mea culpa. But this is so over-used now, and so very often wrong. Mostly, though, it’s the binary nature of the argument that I find most objectionable. It’s possible for two successful products of similar types to co-exist.
  • “Is X the New Y?” – No, it’s not. Especially in reference to all the “is X the new Microsoft?” That implies that, you know, Microsoft has stopped being Microsoft, which isn’t at all in evidence. (I suspect even Microsoft would agree with me on that…)
  • Other cliches and over-used phrases – It’s not entirely fair to slam writers for using stock phrases when they’re writing several articles a day. Many tech editors and writers complain about headlines that are over-used are dealing with simple fatigue from reading far more headlines/articles than most people. But, some phrases really do need to be culled. For example, “controversy swirled.” This might have been a dramatic and interesting turn of phrase once, but it’s just tired now.