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.
We had lots of snow on Friday and a little more over the weekend, dropping a heavy blanket over the trails where Jake and I usually walk. Snow like this always makes me think of my favourite Robert Frost poem, Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, which I just learned...
The quest to rid employee communications of buzzwords and management-speak can never rest, so it’s always encouraging to find support. Of course, it’s unlikely those who speak in “methodologies” and “strategic imperatives” will read...
Here’s one for communications guru Les Potter, ABC: Krudzu: Any proliferating management fad — or simply dumb concept — that overtakes and eventually strangles a company or organization. (From Buzzwhack.com.) Why Les? Because we had a discussion...
More random misspellings spotted in places where there really should be someone who knows better: three discreet stages of innovation (discrete) his interest is clearly perked (piqued) this was born out by the conversation (borne) take a peak at the table of contents...
Here’s one for those of you who “dislike” when misguided “writers” apply quotation marks with wild abandon: Mark DiCristina’s “Blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks (misinterpreting bad punctuation since...
Trust a writer to take away a word-related lesson after a near-fatal experience. Daphne Gray-Grant’s regular Power Writing newsletter was delayed. When issue#149 did arrive, she explained the delay: she’d been in hospital because she’d had a stroke....
I read somewhere a plea not to use the tired ‘Tis the season in either a headline or an opening sentence. Having read that, I’m noticing that as the “holiday season” (as so many love to call it) approaches, that impulse is out there, growing...
My husband and I were talking recently about how when we first started looking for work, my friends and I really didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what we wanted. The pattern seemed to be this: apply for all kinds of jobs; take the first one offered to...
This week, I received what I consider to be a threatening e-mail from my Internet service provider: “In the next couple of weeks, when you log into your Bell Mail [an aside: always known as Sympatico; are they changing it?] using your Internet browser,...
Some of the writing I do for Big Client #1 goes to American readers as well as Canadian. All along, the articles have gone on separate pages, so we stuck to American spelling with things written specifically for the U.S. page and Canadian spelling for the Canucks. Now...
