by Sue Horner | Dec 29, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
While celebrating Christmas with family in a small Ontario town this past weekend, I ran across countless examples of misspelled signs, inappropriate use of apostrophes in what should have been plurals, random capitalization of Important Words and other affronts to...
by Sue Horner | Oct 10, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Time for a reminder to be careful out there! Take a look at some of the recent errors spotted in our imperfect published world (because, of course, I am perfect and never make any myself)*: …the pictures of the bloggers…don’t wreak of the standard...
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...
by Sue Horner | May 27, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I just love finding words eloquently or imaginatively written for the enjoyment of readers. No coincidence, such writing also helps readers visualize what you’re explaining. Here are more examples spotted recently, with my fave parts in bold: “An earthquake will...
by Sue Horner | May 4, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Have you noticed the use of somewhat dated phrases in modern copy? While they are interesting, I wonder if the reader’s eyes just skip right over the words without registering them. Here are a few examples: “Above the fold” when referring to a web...
by Sue Horner | Apr 30, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The search for an alternate way to say “man-hours” and “manhole covers” for an employee newsletter article (how about “work-hours” and “sewer covers”?) got me looking again at the whole issue of gender neutral (or gender fair) language. Some people scoff at even...
by Sue Horner | Apr 9, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
(Updated July 31, 2018) If ever there was encouragement to stay away from the overused word “unique” (not to mention “very unique”), here it is. At least 48,095 news releases used it in 2008. (It’s less common in 2018, but don’t kid yourself; it’s still out there.)...
by Sue Horner | Mar 4, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“There are huge problems in this world, and then there are problems that can be solved by everyday people with red pens and a little moxie.” So says the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, which has proclaimed today National Grammar Day. Not...
by Sue Horner | Feb 14, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
This week, a Toronto newspaper ran a story with a headline containing a buzzword that is one of my most detested — “win-win” — so it’s obvious the battle against meaningless phrases must continue. On our side, we have sites that make fun...
by Sue Horner | Feb 5, 2009 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
At one point, word clouds were everywhere: illustrating a newspaper article, highlighting a book’s content, offering a glimpse into a web site. And for good reason. They are great visual signals for what’s inside. I made the one shown here with a fun toy...
