If only the copywriting were as tasty as the couscous.

Tarted up

Here’s the description from the packaging of Waitrose’s Duchy Originals lemon tart:

A vibrant pairing of zingy Sicilian lemon juice and cream come together in a beautifully balanced tart.

We have the Romans to thank for bringing lemons to Europe and the West Country for its dreamy, rich cream and milk.

Technical points first. In the first sentence, ‘pairing’ is the subject, and it’s singular, so it should be ‘comes together’, although I’m not sure whether a pairing really can come together. It’s already together. Without the ‘vibrant pairing’ part, the lemon juice and the cream could have come together, but no. (This isn’t a difficult error to pick up – Microsoft Word will highlight it as such as you type.)

Now usage. Can a pairing of lemon juice and cream really be ‘vibrant’? Not literally, but we do speak of vibrant colours, so maybe this is OK. For me, though, it feels like the language of lounge-decorating making an unwelcome foray into the kitchen.

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether a tart can be ‘beautifully balanced’ – it makes me think of a strumpet on a tightrope. I’ve certainly got a problem with ‘dreamy’ being applied to dairy products – what exactly is dreamy cream, anyway? (On second thoughts, don’t answer that.)

In my opinion, saying ‘we have the Romans to thank’ implies blame rather than gratitude. For example, I would say we had the Romans ‘to thank’ for introducing that pernicious weed, ground elder, to the UK. Apparently they used to eat it. Perhaps with lemon juice?

Finally, it is true that the Romans brought lemons to Europe. In fact, the Wikipedia page on lemons says so, above the fold. Good old Wikipedia – patron saint of uninspired copywriters everywhere.

Milking it

Now check out the copy from the organic milk in the same line:

Our organic milk is produced from cows which graze clover rich pastures in Devon, Dorset and Somerset

The sub-clause describes the subject rather than defining it, so ‘which’ should be ‘that’. Read this post if you’re unclear on the distinction between that and which. (Again, Word will pick up this one for you.)

In my book, ‘clover rich’ needs a hyphen. Increasingly, people like to omit the hyphen in this sort of situation, but I really don’t know why. You should always use a hyphen if one is necessary to clarify the sense, which it clearly is here. When you reach ‘clover’, you think the cows graze on it, but it’s actually part of an adjectival compound describing ‘pasture’, which is what the cows actually graze. Why trip the reader up?

Finally, I would prefer ‘comes from’ or ‘is made by’ to ‘is produced from’, especially in a context where we’re trying to establish a sense of nostalgic rural authenticity over industrial mass production. And the simpler, shorter or Anglo-Saxon word should always be preferred, ceteris paribus – er, all else being the same, I mean.

I have no illusions about my place in the copywriting food chain. I know I’ll never be asked to write product copy for Waitrose, toiling away up here in the provinces. But at least my workaday, mediocre copy is free from elementary errors and sloppy word choice. I feel it’s the least I can do.

Split infinitives

‘To boldly go where no man has gone before.’ Strictly speaking, it should have been ‘to go boldly’, or ‘boldly to go’. But, as Gene Roddenberry well knew, either of those would have sounded ludicrous. If you want to really make an impact, there are times when it’s practically essential to boldly split infinitives no one has split before.

Prepositions (ending sentences with)

Without rules, our society would surely descend into chaos

‘Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.’ To comply with itself, this gem should read ‘with which to end a sentence’. But if you always did that, your copywriting would end up sounding like Brideshead Revisited.

Prepositions and conjunctions (beginning sentences with)

You shouldn’t really begin sentences with prepositions (‘with’, ‘of’, ‘for’ etc) or with conjunctions (‘but’, ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘so’, etc). But there are times when it’s essential. And desirable, to add punch and rhythm to your copywriting. So relax about this one too. 

Sentence without verbs

A sentence should always have a ‘doing’ word, or verb. But there are many sharp, conversational utterances that lack them, and if you want that tone in your copywriting, you’ll need to emulate them. Like this.

Missing out ‘that’

‘Everybody knows you can’t just miss out words’. No, everybody knows that you can’t just miss out words. But you can, as long as the meaning remains crystal clear to the reader. And shorter is nearly always better.

And here’s a few you can’t break: that and which, possessive apostrophes, decades (‘80s’, not ‘80’s’), its/it’s and their/there/they’re. If you don’t know what I’m on about, get yourself a copywriter!

Some years ago, an assistant editor (who I was supposed to be training) helped me out with ‘that defines, which describes’. This concisely sums up the difference: ‘that’ introduces an essential definition of the subject, while ‘which’ introduces an optional description of it. The following two sentences illustrate this nicely:

He stopped the first car that was driven by a woman.
He stopped the first car, which was driven by a woman.

In the first sentence, ‘that’ introduces an essential definition. Without the rest of the sentence, the meaning is completely different. But in the second, ‘which’ introduces a description, without which the sentence would still have the same meaning.

Note also that ‘which’ always follows a comma, while ‘that’ runs straight on. The comma denotes a pause in speech, as you can confirm by reading out the two examples above. So you can always say your sentence out loud, see if a pause is needed, and make your selection on that basis. (If you pause, there’s a comma and therefore it’s ‘which’.)

Finally, if you use Microsoft Word (doesn’t everyone?) you can simply turn on its live grammar check feature and it will highlight your that/which howlers (with green wavy underlining). I’ve just tried it on the examples above and it worked – in fact, this is one of the few areas where it’s reliable pretty much all of the time. But it can get confused with longer, more complex sentences, so it pays to know the rule yourself.