Now, I must say I’m new to blogging and by no means am a professional blogger, this being my 6th blog post ever. But I have been reading blogs since forever and there’s something that really irks me about a lot of the commercial tutorial blogs, and that thing is the Unnecessary Adjective & Arbitrary Numbered List™.

Let me give a few examples of what I’m talking about:

nettuts.com

5 Amazing New WordPress 2.7 Features

Seriously, are they really amazing? Do these 5 features really amaze? I could call them cool features, even interesting features, but I wouldn’t exactly use the word “amazing”. And why 5 of them? Even if there were only 5 new features to talk about, do we have to put the 5 in the title? Really, what’s wrong with just “New WordPress 2.7 Features”? Does the “5 Amazing” part add anything to the title except to make it sound like Microsoft PR talk?

But then again, just look at the author’s bio. Maybe he really does talk like that all the time. Just look how he finishes off the post:

The new interface and features completely revolutionise blogging, and the tightened interface is a dream to look at.

Yeah, sure, blogging 2.0 is now available with WordPress 2.7! The Revolution has come!

Smashing Magazine

50 Extremely Useful And Powerful CSS Tools

First of all, why 50? For one thing, 50 is just too much for one person to absorb at one time. Wouldn’t it be more useful to separate that that list into multiple posts, such as “Part One: CSS and Typography” and “Part Two: CSS Online Tools”. That way you wouldn’t be greeted with information overload as soon as you click the link.

And now for the “Extremely Useful and Powerful” part. Like, really? All 50 of them? How did they determine that these 50 tools are extremely useful and powerful, as opposed to just plain useful and powerful? But then, I guess for something called Smashing Magazine, you need powerful numbers and adjectives, right? Just look at some other examples from Smashing Magazine:

53 CSS Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

Really? All 53 of them? I must be dead already.

75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques

Did they (really) need to put (really) in there?

50 Excellent Digital Photography Photoshop Tutorials

Must I go on?

50 Stunning Examples Of Reflective Photography

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

Pro Blogger

9 Attitudes of Highly Creative People

Now, Mr Rowse admits it himself, he’s in this to make money. But does that mean the front page of Pro Blogger has to look like Google Adsense? Does every post title have to sound like it belongs in a self help book?

My Rant

I guess these people know what they’re doing as it certainly works for them. Their readers appreciate the up-beat feel and the enthusiasm that the language generates. They know what titles to attract the Digg boys and the Technorati crew. In the end, I guess it’s all about Search Engine Optimisation.

Maybe more people really would click on a link with “13 Fantastic Books Everyone Needs This Christmas” rather than one without the unnecessary adjectives and arbitrary numbered lists, but I don’t like it. To me, it feels like caffeinated, glossed, shallow marketing speak. And since I see it so often, I find it grating.