Effective Communication - A Word A Week (AWAW)

Folks,

I have been thinking about writing this column/news letter about Effective Communication in the context of communicating with the customer. This communication forum is not to point fingers at anyone in particular but educate ourselves from how to do certain things and what not to do certain things. Most of the emails/document we write is read/reviewed by customers and does travel high up reporting chain, for example a project plan/Design documents we produce is reviewed by Directors , VPs and CXOs in some cases.



I am going to broadly classify on Words which we use in everyday communication. The words which we misuse as well. This week I am going to concentrate particularly on a (nonexistent) word which we misuse regularly. Per English dictionary(http://www.m-w.com for example) doesn’t have this word. “Updation” is the word in reference here. There is no word in American/British English dictionary. I have seen this word used regularly. The right usage should be update.



Let us refrain from using the word “updation” but instead use “Update”



For you grammar interested folks, “updation” is wrongly used as a verb , however update(the correct usage) can be used as a transitive verb as is. Update is also a noun based on the context you use for example



Update as transitive verb would be

(Origin of the usage Date: 1941)

: to bring up to date



Update as Noun would be

(Origin of usage Date: 1965)

1 : an act or instance of updating
2 : current information for updating something