by Sue Horner | May 26, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The well of BS is endless, as a new Twitter connection observed about business jargon this week. During the exchange, the word stakeholder came up. Fans find it a useful word describing people with an interest in something, an expansion of the original shareholders...
by Sue Horner | May 22, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If you’re looking for writing inspiration, here’s an idea: Turn up the tunes! Musicians do a masterful job of touching our hearts and souls, and sometimes our funnybones, too. Artists tell stories using many of the more traditional writer’s tools for...
by Sue Horner | May 19, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Time to get cranky, again, about jargon and annoying words. Who’s with me? First up are overused words that are quickly becoming jargon: Hacks. I get it, it’s a handy short word, which is useful in headlines. In most cases, it’s thin disguise for...
by Sue Horner | May 11, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The phrase stopped me in my tracks. “Man-hours.” I was interviewing a client’s internal expert, a man, talking about a recent maintenance shutdown. When he mentioned how many “man-hours” were involved, I asked if his crew was all men, and he said no, there were a few...
by Sue Horner | May 5, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
You have to joke when it comes to talking about a disease that affects your butt. That means there are no sedate names for the 5K events raising awareness of colon cancer and money for colon cancer research and support. Nope, we’ve got the Undy Run, raising...
by Sue Horner | Apr 28, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I’ve been walking my neighbour’s two dogs at lunchtime, to cover while his daughter is away. Logan and Norman are relatively big black dogs, like my guy was, and they were good pals with him. So while I’m helping my neighbour out, I’m also getting a little “dose...
by Sue Horner | Apr 24, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Have you ever been urged to “show, don’t tell” in your writing? Then you want to think about expressive writing. For a compelling example of the power of language, take a look at this fascinating piece about earthquakes by journalist Kathryn Schulz in The New Yorker....
by Sue Horner | Apr 19, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What I write for employee newsletters and other content often involves explaining dense, complicated and potentially boring subjects. Yet a client once paid me this huge compliment: that among my strengths is the “ability to find the human angle in any...
by Sue Horner | Apr 7, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What knavery is this? With so many words at our disposal, we’re ditching some perfectly delightful and expressive words. Wayne State University, for one, is having none of it. Each year, the university’s Word Warriors column lists the top 10 words...
by Sue Horner | Apr 1, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
At a time when attention spans are shorter than ever, a long-running quirky contest fits right in. Yes, I’m talking about The Bookseller’s Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title. “We don’t judge books on the contents within or even by their covers, but by their purest,...
