Spot quiz: Is the American holiday in February: a) President’s Day b) Presidents’ Day c) Presidents Day? So far, the answer is (d), all of the above. I’m editing a client’s calendar, which includes reference to both Canadian and American holidays. I double-checked this item because I’ve seen all three versions. It’s not in my [...]
Monthly Archives: November 2007
Buy nothing black day
I’ve often heard about “Black Friday,” the day after American Thanksgiving, when shoppers are out in full force heralding the official start of the traditional Christmas shopping marathon. I wasn’t sure where the name came from, imagining it referred to shoppers’ elbows as they made their way through the crowd, or perhaps other shoppers’ eyes [...]
Guilty TV pleasure
I’m not a big television watcher and have few “must-see” programs, although for a while Monday nights were consumed with high intensity: Prison Break, 24 and Heroes. But I confess if there are no males claiming the TV remote (a rare event), I find myself drawn to those home and personal makeover shows. The latest [...]
More ammo for print
Companies are always looking at print publications with a critical eye, and wondering why they don’t just put the newsletter online and save money. There are plenty of reasons (studies show people retain more after reading print vs. online; it’s harder to read online; not everyone has access to computers on the job) and measurement [...]
Oh come on – grass station?
I didn’t know until catching up on my Bloglines feeds and reading Dan Santow’s Word Wise that the 2007 word of the year (named by Webster New World College Dictionary) is grass station. A variation on gas station, it refers to where we may all be fuelling our hybrid cars in the not-too-distant future, although [...]
More Sympatico fun
Oh, those jokers at Sympatico. Today they breathlessly advised me (in a message sent three times) that they have “enhanced” my e-mail service and added “new, complimentary features.” The first new feature was that I couldn’t access my mail until I changed my password. Sympatico offered links to help members “configure” their e-mail, assuming of [...]
Click a good deed
Is this for real? I just found the Free Rice site (through Seth Godin) that has a word game that promises to donate 10 grains of rice through the UN every time you correctly pick the right meaning of a word. It’s an admirable mission, although I wonder just who is counting out those grains [...]
More spam scams to avoid
There’s a new category of scams making the rounds (well, it was new to me): hostile messages supposedly from an eBay buyer saying things like “I want my money back because I did not received (sic) my item until now. I will report you to eBay as fraud if you will not respond.” A major [...]
Clueless about RSS?
I’ve mentioned before having friends (not in the communications business) who are less than aware of blogging, podcasting, Second Life, etc., but what if you ARE in the business? As Toronto-based WaterCooler Inc. asks in “The ABCs of RSS,” what if you don’t educate yourself on a trend quite early? “It becomes almost unmentionable to [...]
More creative words
You know technology has truly infiltrated our lives when tech terms apply to people. A client recently asked what my bandwidth was. It used to mean how much data could be sent through a network or modem, but now it’s evolved to mean “how much extra time do you have to take on new projects?” [...]
