Verbal identity

Member lesson

Vocabulary, words we use and words we avoid

Lesson 3 of 10 in Verbal identity.

Lesson

A vocabulary list does something a tone document cannot. It settles the hundred small decisions a writer makes without noticing: customer or client, sign up or register, help or support, and whether your product is a platform, a tool or a service.

voicewho the brand isthe sameeverywheretonehow it sounds in each momenta welcomean errora receiptbad newsseriousplayfulthe tone changes with the moment. the voice never does
A brand's voice stays the same everywhere, while its tone changes with the moment: playful for a welcome, serious for bad news.
On the left five writers make strips of plain tiles with different shapes in the same spot, and on the right the same writers take tiles from one shared tray and their strips match.
Five writers build strips of tiles. With no shared list each picks a different shape, and with one tray of agreed pieces their work matches. A word list makes many writers sound like one.
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Members answer these 3 questions and keep the ticket for this lesson. Every lesson has one.

  1. Question 1, locked

    Why does a list of banned words need the reason written next to each entry?

    • The reason is what makes the ban enforceable by the legal team
    • Writers need to know which bans came from the founder personally
    • Without reasons the list cannot be split into lexicon and house style
    • A bare list reads as arbitrary, and writers route around rules they think are arbitrary
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A word the brand will not use, with the reason attached.”

    • Native
    • Tone dimensions
    • Descriptor
    • Banned word
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The mechanical decisions. Serial commas, capitalisation, how numbers are set.”

    • Empty state
    • Community management
    • House style
    • Lexicon

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