The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Sue Horner is a freelance writer in Oakville, Ontario, who blogs about writing, newsletters, communications and running an independent business in The Red Jacket Diaries blog.

Amusing spam

by | Aug 20, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Feeling battered today after returning from Montreal last night — going there took five hours, coming home took seven, because the highway had been closed for many, many hours after an accident. Although the section was opened by the time we got there,...

Words I enjoyed

by | Aug 16, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Ran across some amusing words this week: Whale client: From MarketingSherpa’s tale of how a small company reeled in a big client, “How CPG marketer’s guerrilla campaign landed coveted space on Whole Foods’ shelves.” (Free access for a...

Customer service – really!

by | Aug 14, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

I’ve been the first to complain about customer DISservice, so let me give credit when it’s due: The Bay (or should I say HBC) did right by this customer. My latest statement came in showing $10.20 due. It was an odd amount and I thought, “What on...

Words in a death trap

by | Aug 3, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Dan Santow (a senior VP at PR firm Edelman) had a great post on his blog Word Wise about words that people latch onto and use “until their meaning and power dies.” His list of “words that have fallen into the death trap” includes some pet...
Dog with a rap sheet

Dog with a rap sheet

by | Aug 2, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

My dog is known to police. I found this out from a hanging door tag left by the local Humane Society while I was out. “Please call the officer below re: incident involving ‘Jake’,” it said. Uh oh! While I was away one weekend, Jake had stayed...

Can execs speak plainly?

by | Aug 1, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

No wonder employees find it hard to understand company “leaders” (the new word for managers, apparently). The latest “BigExec-speak” I ran into this week: Action as a verb, as in, “We’ll action those areas.” Ugh. Criticality....

A pause for commas

by | Jul 30, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

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...

Let’s fight source remorse!

by | Jul 25, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

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...