by Sue Horner | Sep 9, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
(I posted this earlier today, but a hard drive failure on the server hosting my site washed it away. So apologies if it shows up twice. To make up, I’ve added two bonus errors!) We all make mistakes, but in this business, you need to work hard to keep the error...
by Sue Horner | Aug 27, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If I have to write about another “enterprise-wide end-to-end process” or “methodology,” I may scream. The good thing is, in a home office, there are few in earshot to hear the noise. You’ll be glad to know I am working hard to not include...
by Sue Horner | Aug 10, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
So IABC has renamed their annual international conference. It’s now going to be called the “world conference,” to “better reflect the organization’s global reach and mission.” Um, sounds like pretty much the same thing to...
by Sue Horner | Aug 7, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Did you know that there is a column in The Atlantic where Barbara Wallraff posts reader requests for words that don’t exist but should? What a delightful idea! Word Fugitives gathers suggestions for things like “a husband’s uncanny ability to ask his...
by Sue Horner | Jul 30, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
This has been bugging me since I read it in Monday’s Toronto Star: “…the 26-year-old Arizona resident broke his tour maiden at Glen Abbey yesterday.” Shades of 13th-century virgins being despoiled! I suppose the reporter was trying (with a...
by Sue Horner | Jul 29, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
A column in today’s Toronto Star had a great way of describing the liver’s function: “Almost all of the nutrients you eat have to pass through the the liver before moving to the heart for generalized distribution. Your liver decides what gets kept...
by Sue Horner | Jul 22, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Friday is your last chance to submit your favourite mondegreen to Merriam-Webster. “Mondegreen” is one of the new words M-W has added to the M-W Collegiate Dictionary this year, meaning “a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something...
by Sue Horner | Jul 17, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Marketers are going after another supposedly influential group these days: Generation Jones, a term coined by Los Angeles “culture expert” Jonathan Pontell. This is the group within Baby Boomers born between 1954 and 1965. It probably tells you something...
by Sue Horner | Jul 4, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Fun words spotted recently: BlackBerry prayer. The head-down, slightly hunched position characteristic of a person using a BlackBerry or similar device. (From Wordspy.com.) Word of Mom. Attributed to Mabel’s Labels (“labels for the stuff kids lose”),...
by Sue Horner | May 30, 2008 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I ran across a couple of words this week (on Word Spy and Buzz Whack) that particularly appealed to me: Staycation. When you spend your vacation at home. (Thanks to high gas prices and a sluggish economy, it’s all many of us can afford.) Also known to those of...
