While celebrating Christmas with family in a small Ontario town this past weekend, I ran across countless examples of misspelled signs, inappropriate use of apostrophes in what should have been plurals, random capitalization of Important Words and other affronts to word nerds. Sadly, I did not have anything with me to capture them for your [...]
Tag Archives: Words
Your Christmas laugh
It took a while, but I encountered the first instance of “holiday season” in a client’s newsletter I edited yesterday. This phrase drives me crazy, whether or not it is accented by unnecessary capitalization as Holiday Season. Winter is a season; so is spring. Christmas (and the ensuing holiday) is not a season, even though [...]
More heartfelt writing
Here’s some more expressive writing. Love Letter is a public art project in Philadelphia consisting of a series of 50 rooftop murals painted by local and international artists. The project began in August 2009, and is described this way: The murals, which are best viewed from the Market-Frankford elevated transit line, collectively express a love [...]
An imperfect world 2
Time for a reminder to be careful out there, as we look at some of the recent errors spotted in our imperfect published world (because, of course, I am perfect and never make any myself)*: …the pictures of the bloggers…don’t wreak of the standard sales pitch (I think it means reek) …the project would not [...]
Writing from the heart
Now, this is expressive writing! Other People’s Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See (edited by Bill Shapiro), which I commented on recently, has many examples of writing that touches the heart. Here are some that appealed to me: “I love that you sent me an actual letter. I can feel your [...]
Expressive language v.4
Here are more great examples of words eloquently or imaginatively written for the enjoyment of readers: “The files holding the data are as thick as unabridged dictionaries.” – Joshua Wolf Shenk in The Atlantic, “What Makes Us Happy?” “I’m at home a lot, begging for quiet from a child who has the same need for [...]
Watch out for jargon
When interviewing someone for an employee newsletter article, I always ask the meaning of unusual terms, acronyms (a word, like OPEC, formed from the initial letters of other words) and initialisms (a group of initial letters pronounced individually, like CBC). People often reply, “Everyone knows what it means” because they are insiders familiar with the [...]
Posted in The Red Jacket Diaries blog Also tagged Communications, Newsletters, Writing tips Leave a comment
Of seagulls and plankton
Some great terms, many from BuzzWhack: Menoporsche: Male menopause. Symptoms include a sudden lack of energy, crankiness and the overpowering urge to buy a Porsche. Seagull platform: Generally a break room or common area, where food is left out for employees to eat (donuts, bagels etc.). One minute they’re there, the next they’re gone. PowerPoint [...]
Expressive language v. 3
I just love finding words eloquently or imaginatively written for the enjoyment of readers. Here are more examples spotted recently: “An earthquake will unzipper a fault at two miles per second.” – National Geographic “[Sea lions are] a cross between sea slugs and sumo wrestlers.” – Hidden San Francisco & Northern California, by Ray Riegert [...]
An imperfect world
The sun is shining and it’s a brand new week. Time for a reminder to be careful out there by looking at some of the recent errors spotted in our imperfect published world: “eek out a living” (eke, although I like the frisson of living on the edge that “eek” suggests) “hit the gas pedal [...]
