In the trenches - a brief rant

In my quest to eradicate "to be" from all of my professional writing, a few obstacles emerged. Many people feel such deep attachment to using this verb that they suggest it for headline usage (and then ask why I disapprove so much- true story, happened today.) But really, do you want to read that "widget A is here" or do you want to read that a "widget A increases efficiency"? I'll go with the latter. Who cares if it's here? Unless it's Jesus Christ himself, I don't care what (or who) is here, but I do want to know what it does and how my life, job, dog, general disposition will improve if I buy it. After all, isn't the point of all advertising to get someone, somewhere to buy your product or service? Simply telling me that it's here doesn't make me care enough to find out why I should care.

So, the next time someone asks why I disapprove so much of using "is" (especially in a headline), I'll use my classmate, LaDonna's, example of comparing it to Arial. Or maybe, to use another design analogy, I'll compare it to using a Photoshop filter. Just because it's there, doesn't mean you should use it. With so many other colorful verbs (or interesting fonts or alternatives to filters) out there, why choose the easy, common one?