by Sue Horner | Jun 13, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
They weren’t hugged, even though some were as young as three. They weren’t comforted at being separated from their families. They weren’t fed properly or protected from abuse. And at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., 215 Indigenous children were buried in...
by Sue Horner | May 28, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
It’s not about me. That’s what I’ve realized about adding “she/her” to my profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Zoom and elsewhere. Here’s why. The pronouns we use when speaking of someone often imply a gender, such as “she” or “her” to refer to a woman or girl....
by Sue Horner | May 14, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The pandemic has introduced us to many words we don’t really want to know and often can’t spell (epidemiologist is a big one, or is that just me?), but that’s kind of the nature of the English language. It’s always changing. Never mind the new...
by Sue Horner | Jan 8, 2021 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The top word searches this week on Merriam-Webster reflected the chaos in Washington, DC: sedition, coup d’état, fascism, capitol, breach, insurrection and more. But take a look at 2020, and you’ll see what dominated searches and our lives almost all year....
by Sue Horner | Dec 29, 2020 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
As we say good riddance to 2020 (finally!), here’s a look back at the 10 most-viewed posts on my blog during this pandemic year. Words are my business and pleasure, and it appears many of you share my interest in getting rid of jargon and corporate buzzwords. Will it...
by Sue Horner | Nov 4, 2020 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I was among the many Canadians glued to the TV, watching the election results with America. I made it to midnight, and went to bed when it was clear there would be no speedy result. One word kept popping out at me during discussions on CBC’s The National: Several...
by Sue Horner | Sep 10, 2020 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Here’s the TL;DNR (too long; did not read) for this post: The term man-hours is outdated and politically incorrect. This week, more than 4.47 billion people wanted to know the meaning of “man-hours.” Google Trends shows fairly regular search traffic...
by Sue Horner | Jul 23, 2020 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
No doubt you’ve lost count of the number of times the word “unprecedented” has come your way in the past few months. It’s a go-to word for newspaper headlines, concerned emails and earnest messages from CEOs, marketers and politicians. Google Trends shows little...
by Sue Horner | Jun 11, 2020 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Are you getting a little tired of all this ramping up that’s been going on since the start of the pandemic? Testing, in particular, is always being ramped up, or there are calls for it to be ramped up. You might say the use of ramping up is itself ramping up. (Sorry.)...
by Sue Horner | May 7, 2020 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Here’s my small wordnerdy nitpick in the interests of accuracy: All those workplaces installing barriers to protect employees and customers during the pandemic are not necessarily using “Plexiglas.” That’s a brand name, like Kleenex. The generic term is “acrylic” or...
