There’s a two-letter word that highly offends me. Just two little letters when joined together can have me shouting ‘lazy’ from the rooftops.
Want to know what that word is?
‘It’
That’s right, it.
Whenever I read some copy this little fella seems to creep in. He seems so innocent. But that he isn’t.
I know 'it' is grammatically fine to use everyone’s go-to pronoun.
I just think this seems like such a cop-out, a waste. You’ve (hopefully) got your reader hooked – or at least mildly intrigued. This is your opportunity to tell your audience all the juicy details of what you’re offering. Not lose them in copy that starts a chain reaction of yawns.
Every word should work as hard as possible. After all, great copywriting sells, delivers iconic tone of voices and nails SEO.
So my advice to you. Don’t be a lazy copywriter. Reread your work. If there’s an ‘it’ in there, ask yourself ‘does ‘it’ really need to be there?’
Try rewriting the sentence. Add some personality. Start your love affair with the English language again.
What’s the worst that could happen? The client may change your copy to include one. Argh!
Am I alone on this? What do you think about ‘it’? Any other words, pronouns or rules that are right, but look so wrong to you?
