The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Make sure quotes earn their ‘wiggly marks’

by Sue Horner | Oct 1, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

I’ve ranted before about the bad things that happen to good quotes at the hands of executives, so I was pleased to see my sentiments echoed in an article (sorry, I tried to link to it but it may be one of those limited-time-access things) by the impassioned...

Stop the random use of Capital Letters

by Sue Horner | Sep 24, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

A post on Dan Santow’s Word Wise blog says, “It’s bad out there and getting worse.” He’s talking about the increasingly common habit of inserting capital letters where none are required to indicate an Important Word. He goes on to give a comprehensive list of...

Dog with a rap sheet

by Sue Horner | Aug 2, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

My dog is known to police. I found this out from a hanging door tag left by the local Humane Society while I was out. “Please call the officer below re: incident involving ‘Jake’,” it said. Uh oh! While I was away one weekend, Jake had stayed...

Can execs speak plainly?

by Sue Horner | Aug 1, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

No wonder employees find it hard to understand company “leaders” (the new word for managers, apparently). The latest “BigExec-speak” I ran into this week: Action as a verb, as in, “We’ll action those areas.” Ugh. Criticality....

Let’s fight source remorse for more human quotes

by Sue Horner | Jul 25, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

A colleague shared this great term for an affliction common in the corporate world: source remorse editing. That’s when you get a terrific, meaningful, human quote from someone for a corporate use, say a newsletter. During the approval process, your contact sees...

Amazon shows how to use confirmation emails

by Sue Horner | Jul 24, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

The latest Alertbox from Jakob Nielsen refers to Amazon.com’s e-commerce design (more detailed analysis here), saying: “Amazon.com continues with outstanding use of confirmation email to sustain customer relationships and long-term loyalty. A week ago, I...

Anyone else confused about social media?

by Sue Horner | Jul 19, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Glad to find out I’m not the only one somewhat confused about how to use/make the most of social media — you know, LinkedIn, MyRagan, Facebook, MySpace, [oops forgot Melcrum’s Communicators’ Network] etc. Pamela Slim at the entertaining Escape...

Going through the wringer

by Sue Horner | Jul 18, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

What happens when a phrase references old technology? It becomes a prime candidate for being misspelled. I thought of this when spotting “put us through the ringer” in my local newspaper. The word should be spelled “wringer,” as in the old...

New words for two dictionaries

by Sue Horner | Jul 12, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

Talk about a never-ending job! Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) recently added some new words, chosen among submissions from readers for their favourite word not in the dictionary. Sadly, one of the top choices was...

Whatever happened to longevity?

by Sue Horner | Jul 11, 2007 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog

While catching up on my reading after being away, I ran across an interesting article in Saturday’s Toronto Star. In “The tyranny of residual media,” freelance writer Ryan Bigge talks about the iPhone and how consumers chase the new and improved. As...