I have always loved words; reading, writing and speaking them, and spelling and sentence structure comes naturally to me. I know that I am among the fortunate in this regard, because for a lot of people, it seems to be too much trouble even to run a quick spell check before sending their words out for the world to read. I find errors all the time in printed ads, magazines, even published books that have been edited and proofread dozens of times. Don’t even get me started on emails and Facebook.

 

Are you really ready to offer die cut materials to your customers?

When it comes to informal communications, the occasional typo can be ignored, and the content of the message is what really matters, anyway. But when the information is supposed to be coming from an authoritative source, or trying to educate you or sell you something, a misspelled word or incorrect punctuation can make the source appear to be ignorant or sloppy, and that reflects badly on the company they represent. I couldn’t help but laugh every time I heard former President Bush talk about the “nucular” threat from Pakistan or North Korea, even though the topic was anything but funny.

 

There are a bunch of words that are frequently mispronounced, some understandably, since it is more difficult to say them the way they are actually spelled. For example, February and Wednesday are usually pronounced Febuary and Wensday. Some people are more “comfterble” saying “aks” than “ask”, and even some well-read people find their books in the “libary.”

 

Signs of Signage

In recent years, I have noticed that the term “signage” has begun to replace the use of “signs” to refer to more than one sign. The suffix–age has a specific meaning and usage (see, there it is again) which is similar to the plural, but usually refers to a group of related objects, such as a wayfinding program in a hospital or signs of similar design in a shopping center. So a pair of magnets on a vehicle would just be plain old signs. It does sound somehow more elegant to say “signage”, though, so I have a feeling this trend is likely to continue. 

 

Another recent trend I have noticed in spoken language is the tendency to say something like “The problem is, is that…” I have even heard our current President use the double “is” on radio and TV. I don’t know why it would be, be more emphatic to say, say a word twice, but it seems to be happening all the time lately.

 

(Left) Die cut foam. (Right) A die is a thin piece of metal bent into a shape to create a blade that can stamp out that shape from a variety of materials, including vinyl and those same rigid materials.

It is also general practice to refer to a personal computer with an Apple operating system as a Mac, and one with a Microsoft OS as a PC. If you think about it, though, PC stands for Personal Computer, so both systems are running on a PC. I prefer to use the terms “Mac” and “Windows” to differentiate the two. It will be hard to fight the image of John Hodgman as the PC in those Mac commercials, but I just can’t help being a bit of a grammar geek. It’s worth a try.

 

I was moved to write about this because of several recent articles I have read in magazines and on the internet, where sign industry related terms were used incorrectly, which runs the risk of changing the meaning of these terms unless we nip it in the bud. 

 

Die cutting can even be registered with a screen-printed or digitally printed image, much like an inkjet/plotter combination, and it is difficult to tell the difference between the resulting products. Die cutting is a very economical way to create large quantities of simple shapes, because once the die is made, it can stamp out the shape much more quickly than a plotter or router.

A Cut to Die For

Machines that follow a linear path with a blade or rotary bit are dependent on XYZ axis data to create shapes in vinyl or rigid materials. A die is a thin piece of metal bent into a shape to create a blade that can stamp out that shape from a variety of materials, including vinyl and those same rigid materials. Die cutting is a very economical way to create large quantities of simple shapes, because once the die is made, it can stamp out the shape much more quickly than a plotter or router. 

 

Die cut lables.

It can even be registered with a screen-printed or digitally printed image, much like an inkjet/plotter combination, and it is difficult to tell the difference between the resulting products. A plotter or router is capable of producing much more complex shapes, and creating a variety of sizes is as easy as a few keystrokes. To cut different sizes with a die cutter would require making several different sizes of metal dies.

 

When I read an article referring to a CNC router or vinyl plotter as a “die cutter,” I have to assume that the author is not aware of the difference, and if they saw a die cutting machine in action, they would never make that mistake again. So here are some pictures of dies and the machines that utilize them. Are you really ready to offer die cut materials to your customers?

 

Routing a Route

Some misused words will slip right by Spell Check, because the substituted word is correctly spelled, it is just used in the wrong context. For instance, one letter can change the meaning of a word, making it incorrect even though the two words are related. When a CNC router carves out a groove in Sign Foam, it routs out the material, but the path that it follows is a route determined by the digital information sent from the RIP station. I have even seen a router referred to not only as a die cutter, but also as a “dye” cutter. I guess that would be like a water jet with dye instead of water. Maybe it would change the color of the materials as it cut them. 

 

Also, when something requires intense concentration or attention to detail, like reading sign code, you must pore over each paragraph carefully. If, on the other hand, you decided to pour over the documents instead, you would probably stain the paper beyond readability, and you would never get that sign permit approved. 

 

Of course, I am taking the misused words literally, rather than accepting them as a metaphor. Which brings me to another fine distinction of word usage: “literally” means actually, unexaggerated, an accurate description of events. So if you claim that your choice of bold type and strongly contrasting colors literally makes the letters leap off the sign, you’d better be prepared for liability lawsuits and an unhappy customer. If you don’t want to take responsibility for flying letters, you could express your apathy about the situation by emphatically exclaiming “I could care less”. Your customer will say “Great! Then you do care, at least a little bit.” If you truly felt no concern at all, then you would have to say that you couldn’t care less.

 

So head down to the libary on a Wensday in Febuary, and aks the libarian for a book on nucular powered dye cutters so you can literally pour over the details of high-powered signage manufacture. When she looks uncomfterble and tells you that the problem is that no such thing exists, just tell her that honestly, you could care less.