Top Ten Letter to the Editor Cliches (and Bonus)

I love a well-written persuasive letter or paper. There is a certain type of persuasive writing that just makes me cringe: the poorly written letter to the editor.

It's not poor grammar or bad ideas that make a letter bad, it's the same mistakes other people have been making for years: overused cliches and lame topics.

So I bring you the

Top Ten Letter to the Editor Cliches (aka "Don't Pick Up the Keyboard")

10. "So-called", "Supposed" and improper use of quotation marks.

These are not just tired phrases in letters, banish them from your vocabulary right now. Don't try to emulate the quotation hand gesture in a letter. It doesn't work the way you think it does.

9. Your personal and irrelevant social injustice

Someone stole your garden gnome. Call the police, don't write a letter to the editor. Better yet, don't call the police and just get a new gnome. Better yet, don't get a new gnome.

8. The exclamation point

You are allowed to use two exclamation points a year, unless you write ad copy for used car dealers. Don't waste these in letters to the editor.

7. Not just flawed, but overtly bad logic and reasoning

Before invoking the l-word in your letter, bounce your logic off of some strangers. Better yet, bounce it off a forensics major. Your logic should make the reader say "Ah, but here's the flaw". Not "Huh?"

6. "Really?", "What were they thinking?" etc.

Several phrases that say the same thing. This does nothing to further your point.

5. Driving behavior

Everyone thinks they are a better driver than anyone else. People drive a lot. People do stupid things to you while driving. We all know. Please don't write about this again. (I am going to cheat here, and lump in cell phones, the cost of gasoline, loud stereos and SUVs. Same song, different tune).

4. Hyperbole

Everyone overuses hyperbole all the time. I should just quit reading the paper entirely.
(Just so this is clear, any references to Hitler or Nazis fall into this category).

3. Writing about a subject that the readers and paper have no influence

The readers of your town paper are not capable of changing the behavior of the Supreme Court of the United States, Congress, the FDA, a war in other countries, or the Westboro Baptist Church. You picked the wrong audience.

2. "I had to laugh"

No you didn't, you had to write a letter to the editor, and this phrase is trite.

1. Quoting phrases every 1st grader knows.

Please do not quote

• The Ten Commandments or very well-known phrases from the Bible
• Common proverbs of apocryphal origin
• Benjamin Franklin, George W. Bush, Martin Luther King Jr., Caesar, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Einstein, Will Rogers, Churchhill, Lincoln, Roosevelt or similar historical figures unless it's damn original and extremely applicable.
  
• The Constitution of the United States
  
• Mastercard commercials
  

Just for the math geeks, we actually end at zero. The worst thing you can do in a letter to the editor is (drum roll please)....


0. Citing the dictionary

If you can't come up with a more inventive way to make your point, don't write. It might just be the case that your point is weak.

"You Will" with anyone other than AT&T

I remember when the AT&T ads first came out and they were accused greatly of over-promising. Now that AT&T has retaken their name (so everyone will now think of the old monolithic long distance company -- good one guys), it's probably time to look back at these ads.

Andrew Sullivan contends that this predicts the future "shockingly well". I beg to differ. It's not that the technologies haven't come about, it's that their implementation is dreadful or just downright disgraceful. In a couple of cases, the technologies exist but are so bad their low-tech counterparts are more convenient.

Without watching the whole video, let's go through the technologies and you will probably remember each one from the commercials.

"Borrowed a book, from thousands of miles away"

No, because most library web sites have absolutely hideous search engines, and their e-book systems usually rely on proprietary reader software that is slow, clunky, and doesn't let you extract information easily. Copyright problems haven't helped here either, nor has government censorship and internet monitoring, and I don't mean China. With DHS monitoring inter-library loans, and the Patriot Act granting access to library records, why would I make it easier to track what I am reading by using a network?

"Crossed the country, without stopping for directions"

I'll admit this one's not that bad, just damn expensive and don't try using it in a tunnel. The in-car GPS navigation systems I have seen are relatively inaccurate, but I haven't used one lately so they might have gotten better. Noteworthy in this case is that GPS encryption technology was so poorly implemented that the military -- who asked for it to be secured -- couldn't get enough of their own systems to work accurately with Selective Availability turned on, so the FAA and the military requested it be turned off.

Besides, most drivers can't be trusted with anything more sophisticated than a radio in their car.

"Sent someone a fax, from the beach"

Fax? What's that? I presume this device you use to send a fax from the beach is water and sandproof, right? Probably not, but I bet is has MP3 ringtones and comes in chocolate.

Regardless, carriers like AT&T are supposed to be the companies bringing connectivity to remote places, and they have failed badly. I point to the very existence of satellite internet, and its history of complaints.

"Paid a toll, without slowing down?"

BWAAHAHAA! My experience is with Kansas' K-TAG system. Not only do you have to slow down (or it doesn't work and you have to back up on the interstate) it's usually faster to just get a ticket. The batteries die in the car transmitters as well. Probably the most absurd thing about this implementation is the decision to use sticky velcro to the interior of the car windshield. First, many models of cars have windshields that reflect the K-TAG signals so they just don't work. Second, this is Kansas, where interior car temperatures vary from well below freezing to above 150 degrees throughout the year. No velcro sticky holds up to that.

The fastest, most reliable toll roads I have every used? The ones where you pitch a fistful of change into a hopper.

"Bought concert tickets, from cash machines"

Again, the tech is here but the implementation is awful. While I don't know for sure if you can buy tickets through actual ATMs, I know you can get them from Ticketmaster. Their web site is the poster child of user-unfriendliness. It has so many "protections" to keep people from buying tickets the way they want. Oh, did I mention the "convenience fee"? And the Congressional Hearings about the Ticketmaster system?

The commercial should have asked "Did you ever get fleeced and infuriated, just trying to buy a concert ticket?"

The best and most convenient way to buy tickets is in person, at the box office if possible. One of my busiest local music venues helps me pick out the best seats for each event, and can buy tickets faster than the ticketmaster web site. If the venue isn't local, go to a ticketmaster outlet.

"tucked your baby in, from a phone booth"

What's a phone booth?

Let's cut AT&T some slack and just assume they meant from cell phones or a laptop. Video to cell is hardly widespread and cellular companies can't even keep customers happy with their voice service, much less trying to do videoconferencing.
The next closest analog is wifi videoconferencing. At consumer-grade broadband, this is quite underwhelming.
Even if all of this did work, people would just bitch about the loud person in the restaurant, tucking their baby in.

"opened doors, with the sound of your voice"

Even more BWAAHAHAA!. Show me a voice recognition system that actually works. There are perhaps one or two computer-based systems that you have to train, but that's all.
Besides, how secure is a technology that someone just needs a tape recorder to beat?

I'll take a deadbolt anyday.

"carried your medical history in your wallet"

Completely and totally plausible and possible today, were it not for the quagmire of health industry bureaucracy that prevents them from standardizing technology, and the inability of large enterprises to keep data secure.

We'll also give AT&T the benefit of the doubt that they weren't speaking of RFID.

You're far more likely to be carrying around your credit history in your wallet than your medical history.

"attended a meeting, in your bare feet"

We'd all be doing this today, were it not for the luddite fear of telecommuting (PDF).

See the connectivity comment above.

"watched the movie you wanted to, the minute you wanted to?"

Yup, I do this all the time, through completely unsanctioned and borderline illegal technology opposed by movie studios. So I don't get to watch it the way I wanted to.

And carriers are throttling the traffic from this practice as well. They are not only failing to facilitate this coming about, they are actively blocking the ability to do this.

I'll assume I can leave the MPAA out of this as their impact has been obvious.

"learned special things, from far-away places"

Yes, thank you Wikipedia, Google, and Usenet.

Screw you China and Iran.
(I love the irony of a link on Chinese censorship coming from Wikipedia)