A primer on plain language (in October Wordnerdery)
Way back when the world was still coming to grips with the pandemic, helping people understand information took on new urgency. Where could we find the latest news? How could we stay safe? And how far apart was six feet anyway? You could argue that today’s state of...
Assignment: Help readers see the value of music on mental health
Porch concerts were a thing in some neighbourhoods during the pandemic. It’s not surprising; music has been shown to lessen the effects of depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, all of which soared then and remain high. My client asked me to write about...
ngl, some of these new words weren’t on my bingo card
The English language certainly never stands still, and dictionaries like Merriam-Webster do their best to keep up. Thus they officially admit new (or newish) words or new definitions to their ranks as people use them over time. As M-W says, “Signs of a healthy...
Everything old is new again, eventually (in Sept. Wordnerdery)
On summer drives this year, I heard one song over and over again: Fast Car, sung by Luke Combs. You, too? The song isn’t new, although Luke’s version is. He was born in 1990, two years after Tracy Chapman released the original. Luke had sentimental memories of driving...
Kindness on social media? See it in links you might have missed, August edition
Kindness. Compassion. Respect. These aren’t necessarily words you associate with social media, are they? Surprise! They feature in my latest roundup of social media posts you might have missed, these specific to employee communication. I also found some interesting...
A (Taylor) Swift look at numbers in August Wordnerdery
If you use numbers to make a point, it’s not enough to just list the numbers. Especially with large or small numbers, you help your readers by giving context. In the August issue of my newsletter, Wordnerdery, I look at some of the big, big numbers around Taylor...
Looking for a creative boost? Try awful writing
I can’t be the only one who eagerly awaits the results of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. At last, they’re in! This amusing contest goes back to 1982, and invites ideas for the worst possible opening sentence to a fictitious novel. It’s named after Edward...
More writing tips in links you might have missed, summer edition
For those of us who actually liked and used Twitter, the months since Elon Musk took it over have been rough. Twitter’s web traffic is down 11% compared to the same time in 2022. In less than two weeks, some 150 million people signed up for the new Twitter alternate,...