Translate and edit like it’s 2024

If there was ever a talk to make one feel old, “Translate and edit like it’s 2024” was it! Kidding aside, Lloyd Bingham brought to light poignant, often overlooked stylistic questions that can make or break a translator or copywriter’s power to connect with modern audiences: millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, hereafter referred to as “youngsters” for the sake of brevity. Lloyd’s main question was whether what we learned at school is still relevant today. Professionals in other fields, he convincingly argued, constantly integrate modern terminology into their practice. You wouldn’t want a lawyer today who speaks like a barrister from the 1800s, would you? Why shouldn’t the same principle apply even more strongly to professional wordsmiths?

One of his most effective tools to convey this point was a video clip of a recent Northumberland Zoo advert in which an older couple used youngsters’ slang to attract visitors. This got quite a reaction from the crowd, as apparently many, including me, knew little if any of the terms. This was a real eye-opener and drove home the point that younger target audiences will either ignore or simply not be reached by marketing and commercial texts not written in their language.

So, what IS their language? Most importantly, it’s brief. According to research cited in the presentation, attention spans have decreased from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to only 40 seconds in 2024. Sentences should have fewer than 20 words and shouldn’t be fragmented. Youngsters use hashtags for context, emotion and emphasis, a trend that’s now frequently seen in print ads and heard in spoken English. They remove hyphens. Most painful for me was that they find tone more important than grammar or punctuation rules (shriek!).

Two points that spurred animated conversation in the crowd had to do with what yours truly feels is youngsters’ hypersensitivity. Firstly, and to my utter disbelief, they’ve condemned the harmless full stop, labelling it a weapon of passive aggression! Texting and messaging, a millennial colleague of mine explained, have eliminated the need for full stops. One can simply send a new text instead of starting a new sentence. My argument against this removal and/or improper use of punctuation and capitalization is that it creates incredible confusion for non-native English speakers; a point that was seconded by some of the other attendees.

Secondly, youngsters actively use more mindful language to avoid bruising each other’s, in my opinion, far too delicate egos. The example given was from a Gen Z job hunter whose application had been rejected. This youngster had written to HR to complain of hurt feelings and advised it would be more appropriate to write “not selected” instead of “rejected” when replying to unsuccessful candidates. While equally effective, I believe my fellow Gen Xers would simply brush off a term like “rejected” and get on with our job search without first feeling the need to consult our therapist. That being said, no matter our personal preferences, millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha now make up a huge portion of our clients’ target market, and their preferences cannot and should not be ignored.

With the rise in demand for so-called international English, Lloyd encouraged the use of plain English, the serial comma and Oxford spellings, while avoiding culturally specific idioms.

Thus, to offer the best service possible, we need to talk the talk. Lloyd concluded by wisely encouraging us to be our clients’ linguistic cultural consultants, to advise them on more neutral, modern alternatives to traditional marketing speak to ensure the power and efficacy of their messages, and ITA.

This METM24 presentation was chronicled by Courtney Keeling Greenlaw.

Featured photo courtesy of MET. Reproduction of slide compilation with presenter’s permission.