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When is gigahertz a proper noun?

Written by: Joe Gagliano

Article Overview: Marketing Communications needs strong advocates if it’s to do its job well.

When is gigahertz a proper noun?

Marcom folks are generally allowed to do their jobs, in much the same way as the Secretary of State or the country’s Attorney General is given latitude within the bounds of their respective domains. Yet ‘presidents’ occasionally decide to do what they know is best – be it foreign policy or the status of words such as gigahertz.
I was recently informed by the president of a high-tech company that gigahertz is a proper noun, and therefore it should be always spelled as GHz! Of course I can ignore such advice without suffering any consequences, but what about his employees? I would be interested to know how often such presidential fiats make marcom people reach for the anti-acid pills. “Jazz-up” the contents of a press release is another common request, not only from presidents, but also from just about anyone else who is allowed to have a say. And what about approval cycles? How many of you have had to re-circulate a press release several times due to inane edits (and how many of those edits are merely vehicles for the authors to show that they’re on the job, and by golly, they know a thing or two about PR even though they are in engineering).
I have come to define this as “the gigahertz syndrome.” This syndrome occurs more often in companies where the marcom person reports to a marketing parson, and marcom is therefore low in the pecking order. Syntax, grammar, style, format – everything is up for grabs. The wife of the VP of Finance has a friend in PR and she says that the latest press release fails to convey some attribute or other; you’re the marcom person and you wrote the release – how do you defend your position? Since the VP of Finance is quoting a third person you can’t prevail. Are you going to say that the third party is full of beans? Present a cogent argument to explain your position? If you make a strong case for the way the release was written, the vp in question can always back-up by saying, “Well, that’s what I was told.” The person you need to confront is not there, so your competence is left hanging in the air.
Of course marcom is not an entirely special case. Comparable situations arise in engineering, quality control, manufacturing…but not quite in the same way. Anyone can claim to know how to write, while the other disciplines require specialized knowledge.
So, when is gigahertz a proper noun? When the boss says so?

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Article Tags: attribute, cogent argument, fiats, foreign policy, full of beans, gigahertz, grabs, grammar style, parson, pecking order, person reports, pills, presidents, press release, proper noun, secretary of state, several times, style format, third person, vp



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