5 ways to help make numbers make sense (Wordnerdery)
Making a tiny change in your own life that would fight climate change seems impossible. That may seem especially so after a week that saw catastrophic flooding in Europe, wildfires in Western Canada and the U.S., a tornado north of Toronto and more. Yet Starbucks...
Launch your business, already! Here’s some advice
As companies talk about calling all employees back to a physical office, they may have sparked what’s being called the “Great Resignation.” One in three professionals now working from home would look for a new job if they have to go back to the office, says...
Top 10 posts in the Red Jacket Diaries so far this year
Is it just me, or do you find it astonishing that the first half of the year has hurtled past? If it’s July, then, it’s past time for my usual look back at the 10 most-viewed blog posts of the year. While the pandemic dominated the blog and our lives in 2020, I may...
Side parts are out; newsletters are back (Wordnerdery)
“Side parts are out. Tight pants are over. And newsletters are officially back.” I laughed at that comment in Business 2 Community, riffing on the recent “cheugy” word wars. It seems Gen Zs (born 1997–2015) have decreed items supposedly loved by Millennials (born...
Let’s not let others be treated as ‘less than‘
They weren’t hugged, even though some were as young as three. They weren’t comforted at being separated from their families. They weren’t fed properly or protected from abuse. And at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., 215 Indigenous children were buried in...
He/she/they: Here’s why it’s actually kind to share your personal pronouns
It’s not about me. That’s what I’ve realized about adding “she/her” to my profiles on LinkedIn, X, Zoom and elsewhere. Here’s why. The pronouns we use when speaking of someone often imply a gender, such as “she” or “her” to refer to a woman or girl....
Before & after: 5K run release (Wordnerdery)
Several times, I’ve taken part in a fundraising 5K event called Push for Your Tush. As usual with such events, I had to sign a release – actually a “RELEASE, WAIVER and INDEMNITY AGREEMENT,” in all caps every time it is mentioned – for the organizer, Colorectal...
Are these words worth retrieving from the ‘linguistic cellar’?
The pandemic has introduced us to many words we don’t really want to know and often can’t spell (epidemiologist is a big one, or is that just me?), but that’s kind of the nature of the English language. It’s always changing. Never mind the new...