Word Choice and The Butterfly Effect

Maybe you’ve heard of the butterfly effect?  To scientists who study chaos theory it means that a small change in the “initial conditions of a system” can have a big impact on the end result.  

One of my favorite examples is a commercial I once saw for a watch manufacturer (Timex, maybe?).  Two strangers, a man and woman, are approaching a street corner from different directions and are fated to meet.  They will start a relationship when they (literally) run into each other.  The narrator describes a loving marriage, happy kids, thriving careers, etc.  The problem is, Bob's inferior watch has him running... one... second... late.  A near miss and an entirely different future.

I'm not a scientist, but I’m a firm believer in the butterfly effect in a different context: written communication.  More specifically, word choice.  As an experienced copywriter and editor, I've seen countless examples of how the selection of one word over another can affect an outcome.  Using the wrong word gives the ones that immediately follow it a slightly different meaning.  That meaning colors subsequent sentences, and so on.  Ultimately, like a trip to Mars that starts two degrees off course, the reader’s skewed trajectory takes her somewhere entirely unintended.  

OK, so how do you pin that butterfly down?  How do you ensure that the marketing brochure, email blast, web page text or press release that you are writing (or that a copywriter is producing for you) delivers readers directly to the desired destination?

Shred Your Thesaurus.  If you have to pull a word out of a thesaurus or other reference book, odds are you aren’t completely comfortable with how to use that word.  There may be shades of meaning that just don’t occur to you.  Stick to words you’re familiar with when working on an important project - and leave the experimenting for other, less critical stuff.

Proofread.  Proofread.  And Then Proofread.  I’ll share a list of my favorite proofreading tips in another post, but two that I’ll mention here involve time and location.  There’s nothing like getting away from a project for a few days (at the very least, a few hours) to give you a fresh perspective.  Do that more than once, if you can.  And, while it sounds strange, proofreading in a different location can make it feel like you’re reading something new, and open your eyes to questionable word choices.

Get an Uninformed Opinion.  Although you're writing for Audience A, some of your best feedback may come from Audience B.  If you can, have someone completely unfamiliar with the subject give it a read.  Because this is new territory to them, they're much more likely to come back with very specific questions about meaning.  Like, “When you say, ‘We provide online training,’ do you mean you sell that service or give it away for free?”

So, when you’re looking to communicate with absolute clarity, and move the reader reliably from awareness to action, be sure to capture your butterflies!