I was asked by a colleague to edit a small publication recently. An eight-page newsletter-type thing. It was written by professional people who know how to speak and write English very well. Almost as an afterthought, she asked me to give it a once-over, hoping I’d maybe pick up any spelling errors or such.

Every page, every article, almost every paragraph had something that needed to be fixed. And it wasn’t that things were all “wrong” but there were a lot of things that were just inconsistent or things that people deem not-that-important.

I handed the marked-up copy back to her and her response was “That’s amazing”. Not an amazing job, or an amazing talent but just amazement that there could be that many things that could be done better to improve the quality and professionalism of the newsletter.

What things aren’t you picking up on by not having a writer/editor look at the words you’re producing?

The phrase anti-bacterial is emblazoned across just about every household cleaning product these days, from floor cleaners to hand soap. This sells a lot of soap because the assumption is that bacteria are small and insidious and will kill us or our kids if we don’t kill them first.

But not all bacteria are bad. The evidence is coming in that too much anti-bacterial soap/detergent does more long-term harm than short-term good. Exposure to some bacteria is paramount to building a good immune system. But as a selling point, the anti-bacterial thing rocks.

The connotation is also, that if you don’t get anti-bacterial soap, you’re buying… ‘bacterial‘ soap…?
How can you turn the problem around? Non-anti-bacterial soaps should be sold with this new evidence in mind: improved hygiene, better health soap.

How about ‘immunity soap’!