The examples were triggered by a British design firm (whose name I won't mention) that has recently been embarking on a rather aggressive Twitter marketing campaign. The firm has followed me from several (could be almost a dozen now) different Twitter accounts each of which is promoting an e-book and includes a link to some part of their site. I clicked through to see who was sending me so much spam and discovered that the copy on their site was not particularly compelling. (From a copy standpoint this was the more harmless of the two examples I used.)

I mentioned that they both had offices in the U.K. mostly to show that they were produced in a country where English is the primary language—so that readers could see the problems weren't caused by bad translations from another language.

Then, since my bad examples were from the U.K., I decided the good example should be as well and thus I chose Headscape for that. I was familiar with that site because it's the firm run by the folks who produce Boagworld—one of my favorite podcasts.

The lesson of this? Don't spam bloggers on Twitter; you could inspire them in the wrong sort of way!

Stacy,
Thanks for the tip, I've heard of David Meerman Scott but I've not read that yet, but will add it to my list. I should also subscribe to his blog. It looks interesting.

Debbie,
There is a lot of specialized vocabulary in sailing, but when used in context it serves a purpose. If you're racing it is far more efficient to ask someone to tighten the boomvang than to tighten the angly line between the vertical pole and the horizontal one.

I used sailing as an example of situations that require a specialized vocabulary in Beware of Your Vocabulary. I think the trick is just to know when such vocabulary is appropriate and when it's not. If we all know we're speaking the same language, such as a crew that regularly races together, then it's fine speak of halyards (lines used to raise sails), stays (cables used to hold up and put tension on mast) and rail meat (crew whose primary function is to add weight on the windward side to keep the boat from tipping too much). But if I'm blogging about sailing to a general audience I'll want to use a more general vocabulary (or define the words as I go) and offer more description.