Tender has several meanings in English that come from opposite ends of the spectrum. At one end tender, as an adjective, describes something that is soft, gentle or sympathetic. At the other, as a verb or noun, it is represents the formal offer or presentation of goods, services or currency in a business exchange.

Tender writing then has several usages. The gentle and beautiful writing of John Keats is tender. Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale gave the title to F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous Tender is the Night:

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,   

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night…

And as poor Keats earlier in the Ode calls to the bartender for his draught of vintage we find ourselves with yet another manifestation of tender as a version of tending, that is looking after or attending to something.The other major usage of tender writing is the difficult job of writing business proposals to meet a specification for a project. This is not something that Keats or Scott Fitzgerald would attempt. It requires a very different style. Tender writing for business is technical and precise but at the same time needs to make a product or service attractive.

Why do we have two very different tender writers? Because the word is a convergence from two different Latin roots.

Keats type of tender comes from the Old French tendre, from the Latin tener ‘tender, delicate’.

Whereas the tender writing that Madrigal Communications undertakes has its origin in the Latin tendere stretch, strive, hold forth.