Technical and Professional Communication

Actual Writing from Church Bulletins and Insurance Claims

(Or, Listen to What I Mean, Not What I Write!)

Oh, come on ... a typo can't matter that much. Clarity isn't a problem -- people know what I mean. The occasional misplaced modifier? Haven't thought about it since junior high English class when we were handcuffed to the desks and forced to diagram sentences. What's the big deal?

I just want people to take me and my writing seriously ...

REAL ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM REAL CHURCH BULLETINS

• Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. there will be an Ice Cream Social. Ladies giving milk please come early.
• The Ladies' Liturgical Society will meet on Wednesday. Mrs. Johnson will sing Put Me in My Litle Bed  accompanied by Pastor Bradley.
• The memorial service will begin with a choral rendition of Amazing Grave.
• The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
• The preacher for each of the next four Sundays will be found hanging on the notice board in the narthex.
• The Young People's Fellowship will be entertained at tonight's meeting by the Rhyme-Tymers, a local rape group.
• The new loudspeaker system is the gift of Dr. Charles Smith in memory of his wife.
• The rosebud on the altar this morning is in honor of the birth of David Alan Belser, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Belser.
• Last evening's parish pot-luck supper was like Heaven! Many we expected to see there were absent.

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN ...

The following are actual statements found on insurance forms where car drivers attempted to summarize the details of an accident in the fewest possible words.

• Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.
• The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention.
• I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my head through it.
• I collided with a stationery truck coming the other way.
• A truck backed through my windshield into my wife's face.
• The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
• I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.
• In an attempt to kill a fly I drove into a telephone pole.
• I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.
• I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.
• I was on the way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.
• As I approached an intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.
• To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front I struck a pedestrian.
• My car was legally parked as it backed into another vehicle.
• An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.
• I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat found that I had a fractured skull.
• I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.
• The pedestrian had no idea which way to run as I ran over him.
• I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.
• The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.
• I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.
• The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way when I struck the front end.