Last week, a client questioned my use of a comma, which I explained was as a visual pause and an indicator of a change of thought, not a serial comma (as in “red, white, and blue,” where the comma after “white” is not necessary). It seems these visual clues are fading in popularity, or maybe [...]
Monthly Archives: July 2007
Fighting the bull
What a coincidence! The latest issue of Daphne Gray-Grant‘s weekly Power Writing Tips newsletter (for people “who want to write better, faster”) also talks about the pompous way people sometimes want to be quoted, similar to my last post: “But the real difficulty is that the people who write this way are usually proud of [...]
Posted in The Red Jacket Diaries blog Tagged Communications, Newsletters, Words, Writing tips Leave a comment
Let’s fight source remorse!
A colleague shared this great term for an affliction common in the corporate world: source remorse editing. That’s when you get a terrific, meaningful, human quote from someone for a corporate use, say a newsletter. During the approval process, your contact sees this wonderful quote, thinks it doesn’t make him/her sound clever and capable, and [...]
Amazon shows how to use confirmation e-mails
The latest Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen refers to Amazon.com‘s e-commerce design (more detailed analysis here), saying: “Amazon.com continues with outstanding use of confirmation email to sustain customer relationships and long-term loyalty. A week ago, I got an email from them confirming that they were going to ship the new Harry Potter book to me with [...]
More Twittering
Glad to find more company in confusion. Thanks to Judy Gombita for pointing me to a copywriter in tech PR, the blogger behind The Friendly Ghost, who asks, “What is Twitter for, exactly?” He speculates it’s a form of micro-blogging, which I can see — you’re sharing thoughts but in brief chunks throughout the day, [...]
Anyone else confused about social media?
Glad to find out I’m not the only one somewhat confused about how to use/make the most of social media — you know, LinkedIn, MyRagan, Facebook, MySpace, [oops forgot Melcrum's Communicators' Network] etc. Pamela Slim at the entertaining Escape from Cubicle Nation (love that title!) mentions her own confusion and asks for advice. One commenter [...]
On guard for Potter spoilers
Like many households, ours is on Harry Potter alert. The (perhaps) final book in the series is due out this Saturday, and we’ve had it pre-ordered for months. The reading plan has been discussed and settled. Because mornings find Son #1 at work and Son #2 asleep, that’s when I can have a half-hour or [...]
Going through the wringer
What happens when a phrase references old technology? It becomes a prime candidate for being misspelled. I thought of this when spotting “put us through the ringer” in my local newspaper. The word should be spelled “wringer,” as in the old wringer washing machines that pressed laundry through rollers to squeeze out the water. Maytag [...]
New words for two dictionaries
Talk about a never-ending job! Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) recently added some new words, chosen among submissions from readers for their favourite word not in the dictionary. Sadly, one of the top choices was “ginormous” (officially defined as “extremely large: humongous”) and not one of my faves. I was interested to see among the [...]
Whatever happened to longevity?
While catching up on my reading after being away, I ran across an interesting article in Saturday’s Toronto Star. In “The tyranny of residual media,” freelance writer Ryan Bigge talks about the iPhone and how consumers chase the new and improved. As Bigge says, “It might seem cruel to mention the technological best-before date for [...]
