Deliver us from 'deliver'

I now realise that I was wrong. Partially, at least. A while ago I wrote to Lucy Kellaway to complain about one of her pet complaints. She writes a pugnacious and witty column for the Financial Times, whose message, as she describes it, is the same every week: plug in your brain. One drum she likes to beat is the ‘deliver’ drum. ‘Deliver’, she insists, is ‘only acceptable when referring to something that can be transported in a van’. If companies can’t strap shareholder value onto a truck, they shouldn't claim that they can deliver it. I took umbrage with this argument—so much umbrage that actually I wrote an email to her. (It is, of course, essentail that  journalists at the nation’s best daily newspaper hear about what I think.) I protested thus:

If you can deliver babies, sermons and punches, if you can deliver a criminal up to the authorities and be delivered from evil by God, why can't you deliver shareholder value? If you can coin both words and currencies, if you can unearth both cabbages and conspiracies, why can't you deliver both parcels and performance?

In other words, if we can already use deliver in a zillion ways, and if that’s true of zillions of other words too, then why complain about one particular usage?

As I said, though, I now realise that I was wrong.

It’s not that my argument doesn’t stand; it’s just that it’s irrelevant. The problem isn’t that deliver is being used in a new way. The problem is that the new way of using deliver is so general that almost no company should use it of themselves. To deliver—as used by companies who don’t actually deliver stuff in vans—is to supply or produce, to come up with the goods. These categories include virtually everything done by everyone in every walk of life. Farmers deliver (crops), Apple delivers (polished technology), and opium dens deliver (exotic experiences). These varied activities are homogenised by deliver, their distinctive spice suppressed by a bland commonality.

This generality partly explains why the word is so popular. It’s never the best word, but it’s always a convenient one. Deliver is like a Swiss army knife—you wouldn’t use it for building a shed or a house, but it’s handy in a pinch. David Cameron ‘delivered’ no fewer than eight times at PMQs last week, and no wonder, as it’s tricky to select the best verb when you’re pursued by Parliamentary bloodhounds. (Although he can overdo it. When asked how the EU renegotiations were going, he once responded, “I think I’ve got a track record of delivery in Europe that can help to deliver these changes.”)

But if a company isn’t about to be eaten alive by a Right Honourable, and if it wants to say what it does in particular (as opposed to what every company does in general), then it should take the time to pick more specific and more interesting verbs. Apple innovates, farmers cultivate and harvest, opium dens intoxicate, and, yes, delivery men deliver things in vans.

The same is true of two other ubiquitous words, value and solution. They’re too ordinary, too insubstantial. Most businesses create value, unless they’re straightforwardly wasteful. And most businesses provide solutions, since providing a solution just means helping someone do something new or better. Streetlights are an illumination solution. Lord of the Rings creates value as a fantasy narrative enjoyment solution. And if we want all three in one windy phrase: the London Underground creates value by delivering capital city transport solutions.

These are boring words. They’re vacuous universals, so true of everyone that they belong to no one. Avoid them.

LA Fitness' Elegant Phrasing

Sometimes writing is deceptively good. Ordinary-looking phrases can be packed with extraordinary cunning. One example is the slogan of LA Fitness, We’ll get there together. It sounds simple. All of the words are common, and it feels like a mundane encouragement. But it’s brilliant for three reasons.

Firstly, the slogan cleverly dispels the two most common fears about going to a gym. People commonly fear that going to the gym won’t help: they’ll never lose weight, they’ll never get fit, and they’ll probably never turn up anyway. The slogan tells us that we will. It’s inevitable. We will get there. People also fear that the gym will be intimidating, filled with scary, shredded fanatics. The slogan assures the reader that we will get there together. LA Fitness is a community. No one looks down on anyone else because its members are there for each other. This also supports the first point: you will get there, because we will help you.

Secondly, the structure of the slogan is powerful and elegant. Notice its beat: we’ll get there / to-ge-ther. Two three-syllable feet, each of which stresses the middle syllable. Notice the sound too: we’ll get there / to-ge-ther. In each triplet the g sound is followed by a th sound. The balance of the triplets sounds pleasing and fluent.

Thirdly, you can express the phrase in a variety of tones. If you want to sound cheerful and conversational, just let it roll of the tongue. Unlike many slogans, this one is normal enough and rhythmic enough that it doesn’t sound weird to say (as opposed to Accenture’s preposterous motto, High Performance. Delivered.) If you wanted to sound powerful and commanding, just stress the hard gs. One can imagine an LA Fitness coach making an affirming, presidential hand gesture on each beat.

The result is highly impressive: a versatile and elegant slogan that subtly banishes one’s fears. And they did it without using a word that a three-year-old couldn’t understand.