Okay, so I’m reading through a popular business journal. Interesting article about the next wave of must-have capabilities that sites in the Web 2.0 world will need when I come across this sentence:

"Architecting sites to accommodate personalized targeting …"

Architecting? Did the author actually mean to build sites or craft sites or design sites? You bet. Now I love making up words as much as the next copywriter and I generally don’t mind making verbs out of nouns when they make sense and provide the specific meaning and context necessary to be understood by the reader.

But to use architect as a verb doesn’t qualify on any of these counts. Frankly, I think it’s just plain awful writing.

So, don’t do it. I’m begging you. (Have excruciating word usage favorites of your own? Please share them!)

Maven’s Maxim
Strive to write simply and clearly. Even if you got stellar marks on the verbal portion of the SAT (mine was 720), your copy is not the place to dazzle folks with your mastery of high-level vocabulary. Simple words almost always create a stronger message.

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