{"id":70545,"date":"2013-05-08T15:04:38","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T15:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/insight\/one-word-can-change-everything\/"},"modified":"2013-05-08T15:04:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-08T15:04:38","slug":"one-word-can-change-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/us\/insight\/one-word-can-change-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s no time like the present to present a present – how one word can change everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nOn a recent lunch break, I was browsing through the day\u2019s news stories when I happened upon the following gem of a headline:
\n\u2018Anne Bronte\u2019s grave error corrected\u2019 (via BBC News<\/a>)
\nAs you might expect, my first though on reading this was \u201cWhy on earth has such an evidently monumental mistake taken so long to fix?\u201d I couldn\u2019t see how any kind of slip-up from such a famous author would have been allowed to stand for over 150 years.
\nOn actually reading the article, my unintended pun on \u2018monumental\u2019 became clear. \u2018Grave\u2019 in this case was referring to Bronte\u2019s burial site, where the headstone had been engraved with the wrong age. The mistake was one of five that her sister Charlotte found on the stone, and is the only one that hadn\u2019t yet been corrected.
\nIn my defence, \u2018grave error\u2019 as a phrase – with \u2018grave\u2019 used to mean \u2018serious\u2019 – is very commonly used. A quick search for \u2018grave error\u2019 online produced several other unintentionally vague headlines for stories related to gravestones and burial sites.
\nThere are many words that can have multiple meanings depending on their spoken pronunciation (and that\u2019s not just because of accents), which can confuse readers no end. How would you say any of the following out loud: tear, bow, live, minute, wind?
\nThis kind of mix-up is one of the biggest challenges for written communications – elsewhere we are able to take a lot of context from things like body language and voice inflection. Tone of voice<\/a> in copywriting helps overcome this by defining exactly how a brand\u2019s meant to sound, and that\u2019s something we always make sure we get right. To avoid an unfortunate headline or an awkward turn of phrase, contact us<\/a> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  On a recent lunch break, I was browsing through the day\u2019s news stories when I happened upon the following gem of a headline: \u2018Anne Bronte\u2019s grave error corrected\u2019 (via BBC News) As you might expect, my first though on reading this was \u201cWhy on earth has such an evidently monumental mistake taken so long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[314,414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copywriting-us","category-tone-of-voice-us"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThere's no time like the present to present a present - how one word can change everything - Stratton Craig - Global Copywriting & Content Marketing Agency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.strattoncraig.com\/us\/insight\/one-word-can-change-everything\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There's no time like the present to present a present - 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