by Sue Horner | Jan 14, 2026 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Before 2025 was even over, people were talking about the Words of the Year. These represent the topics people searched for online, that caught the public’s imagination, showed widespread use or reflected important events, people and preoccupations. I waited until...
by Sue Horner | May 23, 2025 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Writing inspiration comes from many sources, and this won’t be the first time I’ve pointed you to musicians. The May issue of my newsletter, Wordnerdery, looks at the powerful lyrics of Bruce Springsteen. Called “the embodiment of rock & roll,” Bruce...
by Sue Horner | Jan 13, 2025 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The people who compile and edit dictionaries (lexicographers) and track word searches have spoken. After analyzing search engine results, newsworthy headlines, trends on social media and more, they identified the words that were on our lips, online and in the real...
by Sue Horner | Feb 15, 2024 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Have you ever noticed that suddenly everyone seems to be using a particular word or phrase? “Upskilling” is having a moment, unfortunately. “Overarching” has staying power, also unfortunately. But the one I keep running into lately is “[people]...
by Sue Horner | Jan 12, 2024 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Surprise! Artificial Intelligence (AI) dominated the range of important things, events, people and preoccupations we talked about in 2023. An article about ChatGPT led Wikipedia’s most-viewed entries and Google search data also showed plenty of hunts for AI and...
by Sue Horner | Nov 22, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Do you pause what you’re doing for a moment of silence on Remembrance Day or Veterans Day? I do, and often turn on the radio (remember radio?) so as not to get caught up in work and miss 11 a.m. One year, the radio station introduced the moment, and then went...
by Sue Horner | Oct 4, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The English language certainly never stands still, and dictionaries like Merriam-Webster do their best to keep up. Thus they officially admit new (or newish) words or new definitions to their ranks as people use them over time. As M-W says, “Signs of a healthy...
by Sue Horner | Aug 31, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Kindness. Compassion. Respect. These aren’t necessarily words you associate with social media, are they? Surprise! They feature in my latest roundup of social media posts you might have missed, these specific to employee communication. I also found some interesting...
by Sue Horner | Apr 19, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
This week saw more “churn” on Twitter as CEO Elon Musk branded Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC News, as “government-funded media.” This tag was originally intended to warn users about China’s state media, suggesting government involvement in the content, aka...
by Sue Horner | Jan 9, 2023 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
In 2022, we finally moved past the pandemic’s domination of the words people searched for online. We’re not out of the pandemic woods yet, of course, and we’re still talking about it. But we’re also looking up and talking about a range of other things going on in our...
