You keep using that word

I am perplexed whenever I receive a message that is as astonishingly poorly written as the one below. This brief gem came with two embedded graphics and eight fonts in six colors. Most of that adornment was in the 18-line signature, which I will not share out of respect for the sender’s privacy.

Who should I contact about how to work with [your company] on this solution within the [product] team on how the attached soultion (sic) could be apart (sic) of the solution as we offer an OEM Soution (sic) for part of the integration requirements.

The problem

I’ll start with the obvious: spell check. It’s not that hard. In Outlook 2007, select Tools > Options > Spelling > Always check spelling before sending. It won’t catch usage issues like “apart” and “a part,” so you still have to proof-read before sending. Also, a question should end with a question mark.

The fact that this message — seen here in its entirety — was intended as an introductory letter is also astonishing. It makes a horrible first impression. But that’s not the worst part.*

The solution

The part of this message that makes me sick (and sic) is the gross overuse of the word “solution.” Solution is an empty word, generally used to refer to an agglomeration of technologies too abstract or complex to describe in concrete terms. While it might once have had a place in technology business writing, it has been overused** by lazy writers (and business people) and rendered meaningless. Perhaps coincidentally, many technology solutions are also synonymous with vaporware.

Solution is a problem. Avoid it.

P.S.

Dan Santow writes about the equally useless “strategy” on Word Wise. Avoid it too.

Image source: Rakka / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

1. * Well, you could make a compelling case that the end of the sentence makes no sense at all, but there’s I’m due on the soapbox in the next section. [↩]
2. ** Google finds 111,000,000 results for “technology solutions.” [↩]