by Sue Horner | Aug 29, 2013 | Most popular posts, The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Can a heart ache with sadness and swell with pride at the same time? Yes, especially if your son writes a wrenching, powerful piece describing what it was like growing up a gay sports fanatic. Matt came out to family and friends a few years ago, which already took...
by Sue Horner | Jul 4, 2013 | Most popular posts, The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“I grew up sort of basted in words.” That wonderful evocative sentence comes from Richard Bach in The Bridge Across Forever. The line explains his childhood, where his father read stories in German – translating as he read – and the boy’s mother...
by Sue Horner | May 10, 2013 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Time for some Friday fun! Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. Awkward family photos, Mother’s Day style. Of course your Mom encouraged you to spell properly. Here’s a funny way to remember commonly misspelled words, from The Oatmeal. Thanks to Amy Sept for...
by Sue Horner | Jan 2, 2013 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Bless the folks at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, MI. Every year for 38 years, they have tried — in vain, for the most part — to banish the top annoying, misused and overused words creeping into common use. You know it’s a futile...
by Sue Horner | Nov 22, 2012 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
These aren’t just mediocre little shacks for sale! Here’s how 15 homes highlighted in a local newspaper’s real estate section are described by the agents representing them: stunning (five cases) beautiful (two) awesome exceptional exclusive gleaming...
by Sue Horner | Oct 12, 2012 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
I love reading the expressive ways people find to make a point. Here are my latest finds: “But even links that have nothing to do with Chinese cooking can bolster your profile if your site is barnacled with enough of them.” From a story on search...
by Sue Horner | Oct 5, 2012 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
It’s Friday, it’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and I’ve just completed two “pulling a rabbit out of a hat” projects. Phew! Time for Friday word fun! Are you good at figuring out where words come from? I can attest that this...
by Sue Horner | Sep 28, 2012 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
The English language is definitely a living, growing thing. Oxford Dictionaries Online shows us proof every quarter, as they add new words made popular enough to warrant an entry. Here are some of the ones in the most recent release that I quite like or at least found...
by Sue Horner | Aug 13, 2012 | Most popular posts, The Red Jacket Diaries blog
It was a dark and stormy night… So begins Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Paul Clifford, the inspiration for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. In tribute, the contest gives awards for the “opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels,” or...
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by Sue Horner | Nov 18, 2011 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Hey, it’s Friday. Time for some silly fun with words! Play Hangman with Oxford English Dictionary. No surprise, expect tricky words. Play Oxford Fortune Cookie on Twitter by tweeting “I want to play OxfordFortuneCookie with @OUPAcademic” and a number...
