The Red Jacket Diaries blog

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.

Reporter tries too hard

This has been bugging me since I read it in Monday’s Toronto Star: “…the 26-year-old Arizona resident broke his tour maiden at Glen Abbey yesterday.” Shades of 13th-century virgins being despoiled! I suppose the reporter was trying (with a...

Life’s a butter dream

Friday is your last chance to submit your favourite mondegreen to Merriam-Webster. “Mondegreen” is one of the new words M-W has added to the M-W Collegiate Dictionary this year, meaning “a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something...

Keeping up with the Joneses

Marketers are going after another supposedly influential group these days: Generation Jones, a term coined by Los Angeles “culture expert” Jonathan Pontell. This is the group within Baby Boomers born between 1954 and 1965. It probably tells you something...

Don’t wait for perfection

When my elderly neighbour passed away more than a year ago, his daughter took time to mourn. Then she started the task of cleaning up and fixing up, intending to sell the place. It’s a small two-bedroom bungalow, so the likely buyer will be elderly.  The...

Talking ’bout my generation

I had an interesting experience that followed up a session at the IABC conference on generational differences in the workplace. Exhibit A. My husband (baby boomer) was looking for the phone number of a local golf course. He turned first to the closest print phone book...