‘Social distancing’ due to COVID-19? Here’s how to successfully work from home
Working from home is suddenly on the radar for more people as the world gets a handle on COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more...
Grammar nerds, this day’s for you (us)
Happy National Grammar Day, fellow word nerds! The big day goes back to 2008, and its founding by Martha Brockenbrough and the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. SPOGG is “for people appalled by bad grammar in public spaces.” Yup, that’s me. (Note,...
Wordnerdery: The inside view of member comms at RTO/ERO
How do you reach members of your organization when they number more than 80,000, live across Canada and beyond, and are an average age of 65? I found out when talking to Sylvia Link, MC, ABC, APR, who is Director of Marketing & Communication for RTO/ERO (formerly...
Pay up to experience ‘exciting changes’
“Exciting changes at Paper.li!” said the email subject line. (Paper.li helps you “create a web presence” with an online newspaper that contains your “curated” content.) The email continued, “We’re thrilled to have you as part of our community, and want you to be the...
70 good, better, best alternatives to good
“Amazing” was the go-to word on this year’s Academy Awards red carpet. In fact, if you had a drink every time someone’s gown or Oscar experience or career was said to be amazing, you’d have been drunk before the ceremony even started. At one time, something...
Life is fragile, so don’t waste it
“Life is really, really, ridiculously, annoyingly, infuriatingly, terrifyingly fragile.” So says Katie Hawkins-Gaar, a writer and journalism consultant…and young widow. Her husband Jamie died in 2017, collapsing less than a mile from the finish line of a half marathon...
‘They’ gives more options to count people in
A peek under the blog “hood” shows that a post about looking for a gender-neutral option for man-hours is one of the most-read on my blog. I’m clearly not the only one who has looked this up! (Long story short, try work-hours or staff-hours.) Women...
‘The cooling power of a cat yawning’ + more metaphor magic (Wordnerdery)
In a world where skimming and snacking is our default way of operating, vivid images can be an express trip to understanding. Metaphors are magic when you want to explain something complicated, give an idea of size, make a point memorably – or just make someone smile....