“He touched the bu-utt.”~ Finding Nemo

On the contrary.
“But” negates everything that was said or written right before the “but”, my client told me. “So take it out of any copy you write for me~” This little tidbit of awareness has opened up a whole new world for me. I went back and scanned (almost) all of my old blog posts for the word “But” (and its sneaky cousin “Yet”). It took a long time and I had used them, a lot!

Once I saw it, I saw it in everything,

On TV: “I love you and I want this to work out, but ….” ~Insert your favorite soap opera/reality TV show/ Talk show
In music: “I’m Superman with the wind at his back | She’s Lois Lane but … (when it’s bad, it’s awful.) ~Love the Way You Lie, Eminem/Rihanna
In the blogosphere: “You see, white people like the idea of getting smarter quickly, but they don’t like the idea of people thinking that they are lazy.” ~From, Stuff White People Like
In my email correspondence: “We were going to try and come over tonight, but…”

This last one has a double whammy in it: “But” AND “Try.”

Who dunnit?

When I changed the “but”s to “and”s and the “try”s to “will”s, my writing took on a new tone of certainty. The experience before AND after the but may be important and if they send different messages it warrants another look.

Contrary messages confuse readers, negate the positive, and whittle away at the credibility of the message. It’s time to drop the “but”.