What kind of ‘tired’ are we? Let me count the ways

/in , ,

According to Mintel’s latest insights report, 2023 Consumer Trends, if you’re not already suffering from hyper fatigue you soon will be. It’s one of five major global consumer trends predicted to influence our behaviour over the next five years.

That many of us are feeling tired, if not necessarily to a hyper degree, was recently confirmed by a YouGov poll for the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). Based on a sample of 2,086 UK adults, its results suggest that 35% of us – that’s more than 1 in 3 – believe that tiredness is preventing us from making healthy changes to our diet and physical activity levels.

But as Emma Beddington of the Guardian points out (Guardian, 21 May 2023), tiredness and even hyper-tiredness come in many shapes and sizes. As she goes on to say, ‘… surely there must be better ways to describe what we’re experiencing? One word shouldn’t cover everything from a 50-mile bike ride, to five teething night feeds, to soul-crushing world-weariness’.

I agree, and am reminded of a series of LinkedIn posts I created a while back on the habit many public writers have of using one blunt word repeatedly instead of multiple precise ones. Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll share them with you. I wonder how many of them you use? 😁

____________________

Photo by Cris Saur on Unsplash 

The language of love . . .

/in

Yo! For all you online suitors out there hoping to woo with the written word, here’s a bit of advice from dating website OKCupid:

‘. . . netspeak, bad grammar and bad spelling are huge turn-offs.’

Expressions least likely to win you a reply, let alone a date, include ‘ur’, ‘r’,’u’ and ‘ya’. Similarly, words misspelt simply to shorten them such as ‘realy’, ‘luv’ and ‘wat’ are also to be avoided if you are hoping to impress. Unaccountably though, for me anyway, phrases such as ‘kinda’, ‘what’s up’ and ‘yo’ don’t appear to deter – hence my out-of-character introduction. So no, for those of you beginning to wonder, OKCupid isn’t a service dedicated to middle-aged pedants like me.

For more pointers on what you should be saying to secure that first date, take a look at the original article. Admittedly it was written nearly four years ago now, but I’m guessing that its findings are no less pertinent.

PS: Can anyone talk me through ‘realy’?