The language of copy
Like many of my fellow Swedes in the web strategy/communication/development biz I write a lot of site copy, marketing copy, and briefing documents in both English and Swedish. With clients and projects on both sides of the Atlantic this is as much a joy as a practical necessity for me.
During the years I have lived in the UK and US I have adopted a deep (but far from perfect) understanding of both British English and American English, as I am sure have my countrymen who have emigrated and dove in to language focused work.
Now, writing copy especially is a challenging undertaking in it self, what with getting the tone of voice right, nailing the message, editing the wishes of the publisher to fit the needs of the audience and so on.
Working across linguistic and cultural borders adds another level to this challenge. Predictably it is the nuances, subtleties and (pop) cultural references that lead to problems. In other words all the things that make a language live, breath and feel relevant to the intended audience.
This is never truer than when the clients themselves don’t speak English as a first language. And never more often than when working with Scandinavian clients.
Being Swedish I know that us Scandinavians, and Swedes in particular, tend to think that as a people we master the English language perfectly. Not entirely true. We’re very good at it, seeing as we start learning the Queen’s English in school at age seven, love the BBC and travel to London on a regular basis.
But often Swedes living in Sweden don’t really allow themselves to fully appreciate the way the English language is actually used in daily life in England, or America for that matter. As a nation we are brought up with a fairly strict English language curriculum and don’t really like going out on a limb linguistically as we don’t want to offend anyone. (Our gentle approach to the world around us is one of the things I love most about my native land.)
The result is that Sweden-based Swedes in general are overly careful in their choice of words when communicating with Brits, Americans and Canadians (with Australians everyones relaxes as they seem cool with almost anything ;) ). Add to this that Swedes are also incredibly self-critical (another national trait).
One unfortunate effect of this is that they tend to water down their English language pitches and marketing messages until there is essentially nothing there.
This is doubly unfortunate as the natural skepticism of especially Swedes, combined with our technically correct use of English, creates a unique language experience with a flow and tone that works especially well for marketing copy if it is left alone earlier in the editing process. In fact a US agency rep I spoke with recently was going after Swedish copywriters for this very reason.
He felt that while, in general, Swedish English copy as written by Sweden based copywriters (and other writers) could be a tad too strict, writing nice plain English seemed to come naturally to Swedish writers. Not plain as in dull but plain as in easy to understand. Scandinavians are very good at writing copy for real people in their native languages. Clean, to the point, and more often than not with a sense of place and charm that is very enjoyable. The fact that we apparently can translate much of this to English should be a source of pride for us.
The one challenge then that remains is for Scandinavian based writers, and commissioning clients, to become a bit bolder. Not be afraid to push the proverbial envelope when working on English language projects. Allow your writers, regardless of their nationality and location, to write with wit, make references, go for the double entendres, and simply let the copy fly like never before.
It’s hard to get it right, very hard, but that shouldn’t stop anyone.
As a writer (I use the term very loosely to encompass anyone who relies on their writing for work) or a client, how do you get more “localized”? Living in English speaking countries helps, it’s the way I did it, but there are many other ways of doing it that don’t require you to relocate.
Reading other people’s work, analyzing it to understand the ins-n-outs and exploring their references is probably the best, easiest and most enjoyable way to do it. Listening to local radio stations is another good idea. As long as you immerse yourself in the language you “need”, any option is fine.
If at the same time we educate non-native English speaking team members and clients better about the use of the language and why we write the way we do, the ultimate winner will be the audiences that will one day read our copy.
Update: Ryan Carson has a somewhat related post today about writing copy for real people.
