Show some love for neglected expressive words
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...
Another odd book title wins cheeky contest
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,...
7 deadly sins of e-newsletters
If you’ve ever given someone your business card at a networking event and later discovered you’d been signed up for a daily newsletter, you’ve seen the dark side of email newsletters. Good email newsletters share information of value to the reader....
How to take the leap to the independent life
A young PR professional with about a year of corporate experience under her belt approached me to talk about how to develop her career. We had a good conversation, after which she said she was inspired “to take tangible steps toward strengthening my visibility...
Ditch the fragments when writing a caption
A photo caption’s job isn’t to tell the whole story all by itself. Ideally, the photo captures attention; the caption adds meaning and leads the reader to the story for more details. Of course, there are plenty of rules about captions (also called cutlines). A...
Wave your grammar nerd flag, it’s National Grammar Day
It’s National Grammar Day! I know, exciting, isn’t it? 🙂 The big day goes back to 2008, when Martha Brockenbrough and the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG) founded it. SPOGG is “for people appalled by bad grammar in public spaces.” Yup,...
New Scrabble words? Don’t tell Mom
You watch; my mother will probably get “bezzy” on a triple in one of our usual spirited Words with Friends games. So don’t tell her about the words that Scrabble now officially accepts, including: Augh: An interjection expressing frustration (shades of Charlie...
‘Insight as a cat’ + more expressive writing
Steve Jobs illustrated the value of an iPod by saying it would let you take your whole music library with you in your pocket. That’s the kind of expressive language that gives readers or listeners an “aha!” moment of understanding. The February issue of my...