{"id":7153,"date":"2009-02-25T11:13:52","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T18:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=7153"},"modified":"2009-02-25T13:11:20","modified_gmt":"2009-02-25T20:11:20","slug":"appliance-is-not-a-verb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7153\/appliance-is-not-a-verb\/","title":{"rendered":"“Appliance” is not a verb!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a purveyor of Real Estate Search Engines that function best when they have text to work with, and as a guy who holds both a journalism degree and the English language in high regard, I often find myself wincing in pain when I read the descriptions that end up on Property Detail pages.<\/p>\n

Lately, I have noticed two new “words” creeping into the bastard child of English that is the Real Estate lexicon: “applianced” and “fireplaced”.<\/p>\n

Both of these nouns that have been horribly mutated into past-tense verbs are often accompanied by that harbinger of terrible writing, the adverb, as in “fully applianced” and “newly fireplaced”.<\/p>\n

What the Hell does “fully applianced”” mean? If the dishwasher has been stolen out of a REO, does that make it “partly applianced”? If a foreclosure still has the pipes in the walls, is it “fully coppered”?<\/p>\n

Not to get all Andy Rooney on you, but at a time when people are questioning both the need for and general quality of Real Estate professionals, you aren’t helping yourselves when your most potent marketing tool — the description of a listing you publish on the Web — sounds like it was written as a late homework assignment in the back seat of the short bus on the way to reform school.<\/p>\n

Now I know that many people regard grammar books with the same level of enthusiasm normally reserved for a root canal, but there is one grammar book out there that makes the subject as painless as a nitrous-induced laughing fit. It is called The Elements of Style<\/em><\/a>, also known as “Strunk and White” for the two men responsible for the original version.<\/p>\n

William Strunk, who was EB White’s English professor at Cornell, wrote the original “little book” in the 1940’s. It was called the “little book” because the grammar part is just 14 pages, and it is written as a series of easy-to-remember commands, like “Omit Needless Words”.<\/p>\n

(To which, if I were writing the Real Estate Description Edition, I would add “Don’t make shit up.”)<\/p>\n

EB White was asked to update his old professor’s grammar book, and he added a section Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a purveyor of Real Estate Search Engines that function best when they have text to work with, and as a guy who holds both a journalism degree and the English language in high regard, I often find myself wincing in pain when I read the descriptions that end up on Property Detail pages. Lately, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-real-estate","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":323,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/323\/negotiating-buyer-representation-real-estate-is-probably-the-only-industry-that-doesnt-respect-fully-the-person-who-pays\/","url_meta":{"origin":7153,"position":0},"title":"Negotiating buyer representation: “Real estate is probably the only industry that doesn’t respect fully the person who pays . . .”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"On the general topic of buyer representation, Jim Duncan at Real Central VA has a post up about being very choosy about which clients he will take on. Interestingly, Jim provides a link to a specimen copy of a Virgina Asscoation of Realtors Buyer Broker Exclusive Employment Agreement. I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5199,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/5199\/foreclosure-homes-are-sold-as-is-but-most-need-only-minor-restoration-to-bring-them-back-to-fully-livable-condition\/","url_meta":{"origin":7153,"position":1},"title":"Foreclosure homes are sold “as-is” — but most need only minor restoration to bring them back to fully-livable condition","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0Foreclosure homes are sold \"as-is\" -- but most need only minor restoration to bring them back to fully-livable condition If we were to have a contest for the Valley's most-gutted home, judging might take a while. A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investment"","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3339,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3339\/bloodhoundblog-unchained-dvds-shipping-watch-your-mailbox\/","url_meta":{"origin":7153,"position":2},"title":"BloodhoundBlog Unchained DVDs shipping; watch your mailbox","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The DVDs for BloodhoundBlog Unchained will ship tomorrow, at long last. I guess that's only six weeks, but it seems much longer. If you live in Phoenix, you should have a package by Friday. Further out, you could be looking at next Monday or Tuesday. If you haven't received yours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3528,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3528\/a-real-estate-sign-of-the-times-our-first-custom-yard-sign-printed-in-both-english-and-spanish\/","url_meta":{"origin":7153,"position":3},"title":"A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0A real estate sign of the times: Our first custom yard sign printed in both English and Spanish We do things that other brokers in the Phoenix area don't do. We're not the busiest listing brokerage --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3370,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3370\/listing-real-estate-the-bloodhound-way-custom-yard-signs-in-english-and-spanish\/","url_meta":{"origin":7153,"position":4},"title":"Listing real estate the Bloodhound way: Custom yard signs in English and Spanish","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"These signs don't exist yet; they won't be finished until Friday at the earliest. This is the first time we've done this, custom signs with one side in English, one side in Spanish. The flyer is done in both languages, also, one on each side of the sheet. I may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1376,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1376\/real-estate-investing-for-retirement-the-human-factor\/","url_meta":{"origin":7153,"position":5},"title":"Real Estate Investing For Retirement — The Human Factor","author":"Jeff Brown","date":"May 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In the real estate investment side of the biz, everyone wants to talk endlessly about where to invest, how to invest, the best way to analyze the various investment factors, what needs analysis, and the rest. However, the most common factor left out of the process is the human factor.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investment"","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7153"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7157,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions\/7157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}