by Sue Horner | Jun 15, 2012 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
For Father’s Day, a salute to Dads everywhere with some of the pearls of “dad-isms” that have come from the fathers I know: “Life is too short to drink cheap wine.” “She was in the family way…she was in everyone’s...
by Sue Horner | Dec 5, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
No doubt you breathlessly awaited the results of the contest that marked the 2011 National Punctuation Day (Sept. 24) — the day for drawing attention to America’s lapsed grammar skills. Well, wait no longer! NPD founder Jeff Rubin announced the select few...
by Sue Horner | Sep 30, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Thank goodness, Akismet keeps blog spam at bay. But every once in a while, I look through the spam holding pen to check out the most recent catches. I have to say, those spammers are getting quite creative, even if their grammar, excessive use of exclamation marks and...
by Sue Horner | Aug 27, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I get such a kick out of the Bulwer-Lytton award, which challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The contest pays tribute to the famous “It was a dark and stormy night” opening of the 1830 novel Paul...
by Sue Horner | Aug 17, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If you are a word nerd and grammar geek, you probably notice signs in grocery stores that say apple’s instead of apples and cringe at misspellings and improper punctuation. So you may already know about and celebrate National Punctuation Day, which this year is...
by Sue Horner | Mar 25, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The wonderfully quirky Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year has a new winner: Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way, by Michael R. Young. The prize is given by British trade magazine The Bookseller, a leading trade magazine for the book industry...
by Sue Horner | Jan 8, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Those crazy word-nerds in the American Dialect Society have done it again, coming out with “app” as their Word of the Year for 2010. As even your grandmother probably knows, app is short for software application, and has gained particular popularity in...
by Sue Horner | Nov 30, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Leave it to the British to give an award for Bad Sex in Fiction! The 18th annual (dis)honour, given out last night, went to Rowan Somerville for his novel The Shape of Her. Somerville won over the judges with phrases such as the one describing an act of lovemaking as...
by Sue Horner | Oct 10, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
It being Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, I am grateful for many things: love, friendship, family, work, health and happiness. But you know what else I truly appreciate? Those creative folks at Sesame Street. Yes, they have done it again, with a clever and funny parody...
![TTYL – I’m busy herding cats!]()
by Sue Horner | Oct 6, 2010 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Fall is that exciting time of year (for word nerds) when The Oxford American Dictionary adds new words and phrases — this year, 2,000 of them! What’s not to like about the list? It includes abbreviations now recognized as words, like BFF (best friends...
