by Sue Horner | Nov 25, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Yesterday, a headline in a prominent newspaper boldly proclaimed that the Saudi king was handing over the reigns while he was in the U.S. for treatment. Since a king only has one reign, and he holds it whether he’s in the U.S. or not, I thought at first maybe...
by Sue Horner | Oct 19, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I had been mulling over writing here about the times I was surprised, pleased and even floored to discover someone had (secretly) been reading this blog, and I had no idea because they never commented. Just last week, a new IABC contact mentioned that something I had...
by Sue Horner | Sep 24, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
What makes me crazy Are apostrophes in signs. Know the one’s I mean? That is my haiku in honour of National Punctuation Day, September 24. (OK, I know an apostrophe is not punctuation, so it’s more of a haiku in honour of general grammatical attention to detail,...
by Sue Horner | Sep 6, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I love reading the expressive ways other people have found to make a point. Here are my latest finds (the parts I particularly like are in bold): • “I sometimes think of cancer as a long and difficult journey, a quest out of Tolkien, or a dark waltz.” –...
by Sue Horner | Jun 22, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Ontario and British Columbia are getting a new Harmonized Sales Tax, or HST, on July 1. The HST replaces the Goods & Services Tax that I now charge, so this will affect me. So I signed up about a month ago to receive technical bulletins from the government that...
by Sue Horner | May 20, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A client called yesterday in a bit of a panic, wondering if I could revise a news release for her by end of day. This is the kind of thing I often refer to as “pulling a rabbit out of a hat.” I was already juggling a number of projects, but this is a...
by Sue Horner | Sep 25, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Yesterday was a big day for those of us who notice and cringe at signs with extra or missing apostrophes. If people suggest that makes you a nitpicker, tell them you have nothing on former newspaperman Jeff Rubin, the founder of National Punctuation Day. Jeff started...
by Sue Horner | Sep 20, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
This week I had the shocking experience of having someone Not. Like. My. Work. I say shocking because I’ve been fortunate. Over about 18 years of running my own business, I’ve been able to submit a first draft of my assignments that’s pretty close to...
by Sue Horner | Aug 13, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Here are more great examples of words eloquently or imaginatively written for the enjoyment of readers: “The files holding the data are as thick as unabridged dictionaries.” – Joshua Wolf Shenk in The Atlantic, “What Makes Us Happy?”...
by Sue Horner | Aug 2, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
When interviewing someone for an employee newsletter article, I always ask the meaning of unusual terms, acronyms (a word, like OPEC, formed from the initial letters of other words) and initialisms (a group of initial letters pronounced individually, like CBC). People...
