Business Show?

Question

I just prepared a company news release (an English version). If someone has the time could you look through it and let
me know where I did something that could have been done better.

Title: Somecompany at the International Business Show "Some Business Show 2003"!
We would be pleased to invite you to visit "Some Business Show 2003", the 6th annual international business show, which will take place November 11-15, 2003 in SomeCity.
Our company will be represented at booth C55. We are also giving a one-and-half-hour seminar called "SomeDoc and SomeMail as software tools for managing enterprise document workflows" on November 11 at 1 pm at Conference Hall 5.
For details, please contact us by e-mail or by phone.

Thank you in advance.
Alexander

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Hi Alex!
Here are my proposals:
[nq:1]I just prepared a company news release (an English version). If someone has the time could you look through it ... 6th annual international business show, which will take place November 11-15, 2003 in SomeCity.We are pleased to invite you at...[/nq]
or :we would be pleased to welcome you at..
Think about what you want to say,
The meaning of your sentence is, that you would be pleased if you could invite them..
Well, you can. That's what the release is all about. Leave the visit out altogether.
[nq:1]Our company will be represented at booth C55. We are also giving a one-and-half-hourmake it 90 minute, sounds better seminar ... 5. For details, please contact us by e-mail or by phone.try: via e-mail or phone == Thank you in advance.[/nq]
No Problem :-)
Yours, Barbara

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I just prepared a company news release (an English version). If someone has the time could you look through it ... at Conference Hall 5. For details, please contact us by e-mail or by phone. == Thank you in advance. Alexander[/nq]
Since you have not offered free drinks or a lavish spread of foods, no one will do more than glance at the wording.
However, I would think you are pleased rather than you "would be pleased". When you say your company will be represented at booth C55, it sounds like you will have someone stationed in booth C55 that represents your company, but that booth C55 is really someone else's. I'd prefer something like "Please visit us in booth C55". I'd go for "You are invited to attend our hour-and-a-half seminar..". I don't particularly like the idea of a seminar being "given". Place the seminar "in" Conference Hall 5 and not "at" Conference Hall 5.

I'm kind of iffy on stating the length of the seminar. You'd need topless round card girls to get me to go to a 1.5 hour seminar on your product. I'd be tempted to omit the length and try to trap your potential customers into thinking the seminar will be brief. I'd also question whatever executive thinks he can hold an audience's interest for 1.5 hours of slides and flip-charts that flog your wares. Personally, I'd make him drink a quart of water before the speech and allow him to continue talking for only the amount of time before he needs to go relieve himself.
Reconsider offering free drinks and a lavish spread.
Wording for this type of thing isn't really important as long as the information is complete and there's nothing particularly jarring about the style.

Usenet · Answer

...
} I'm kind of iffy on stating the length of the seminar. You'd need } topless round card girls to get me to go to a 1.5 hour seminar on your } product.
I was just thinking that even that wouldn't do it for me until I sparked it and realized that "topless round-card girls" might have been easier to latch onto (as it were).

R. J. Valentine

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]... } I'm kind of iffy on stating the length of the seminar. You'd need } topless round card girls ... until I sparked it and realized that "topless round-card girls" might have been easier to latch onto (as it were).[/nq]
Damned if I know how that should have been written. These are the girls you see in a boxing match that parade around the ring holding up a sign that indicates the round coming up. The cards are not round. The girls are usually rather well rounded. I don't argue with your hyphenation, but I'm not sure that there's a right way to do it.

Usenet · Answer

}
}>...
}>} I'm kind of iffy on stating the length of the seminar. You'd need }>} topless round card girls to get me to go to a 1.5 hour seminar on your }>} product.
}>
}>I was just thinking that even that wouldn't do it for me until I sparked }>it and realized that "topless round-card girls" might have been easier to }>latch onto (as it were).
}
} Damned if I know how that should have been written.

Even now?
} These are the } girls you see in a boxing match that parade around the ring holding up } a sign that indicates the round coming up.
Of course they are. I was wondering what "card girls" were, though.

} The cards are not round.

Ah, I see what I have introduced in addition to what I intended. There it's the difference between "round-card" with stress on both parts, which you have denied without my ever having thought to assert it, and "round-card" with the stress square on the "round", which I assumed you meant after I backed away from the puzzling "card girls" (wondering why they might be round). It's almost like "round-card" has already graduated to "roundcard".
} The girls are usually rather well rounded. I don't argue with your } hyphenation, but I'm not sure that there's a right way to do it.

I'd guess that "round card" is wrong, but not all that uncommon. I'd guess that "round-card" is right, but has the ambiguity you mention. I'd guess that "roundcard" hasn't yet arrived (though it may have while I wasn't looking).
Having no-doubt wook up Mr. Cunningham with an English-usage subject possibly dear to his heart (i.e., e.g., whether right-clumping of modifiers (in the absence of hyphens and commas and in the presence of spaces) is actually well accepted by the English-reading public), I'd wonder what his take on the original sentence was.

Is this another job for hyperhyphenation (q.v.)? Should it be "round=card" as a stand-alone (not just as part of an ordinarily hyphenated compound modifier, as in what may come to be known as the "round=card-girl question")?

R. J. Valentine

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