Thank you for your business and support, we look forward to years of continued success and partnership.
No, that’s not my 2014 holiday greeting to you.
It was the copy on a pretty card I wanted to buy for my clients but couldn’t because of the comma splice. My credibility... (Read More)
Here’s the first bit of an email I got last week from a well-known media company.
Happy Halloween Alumni!
Are you afraid to wander outside on the scariest night of the year? Then spend a night in with one of our upcoming online courses. One of our most popular... (Read More)
A reader challenged my placement of a question mark outside a quotation mark.
“I don’t think that’s correct,” he wrote. “Always inside, that’s what the nuns taught.”
The source of debate appeared in the following sentence—part of a discussion in which I was clarifying when to use me instead of... (Read More)
It’s fun to write with dashes. Tack one on and dash off another thought. Problem is we tend to tack on one too many, which makes our copy look as if it’s had one too many.
Here’s how not to get slapdash:
Know there are two kinds of dashes: the... (Read More)
When a big executive of a big company made a big announcement about a service that promises to change the way we pay for things, he said his company is interested only in making transactions easier. When it comes to tracking what people are buying, where they’re buying, or how... (Read More)
I get all pumped up when people write and say, That’s my pet peeve or Here’s another one that makes me nuts.
Sometimes I get emails that say simply, Here! Here! Those give me pause because I can never remember whether it’s Here! Here! as in, Yoo-hoo, I’m over... (Read More)
A company said it wanted to position me as an extension of its team/culture. Another asked whether I provide deals/discounts for bulk work. As I was writing this bulletin, this question popped up in my inbox: How many different jobs did you try until you found your passion/career of choice?
... (Read More)“It’s so easy to fall in love.” So sang Linda Ronstadt in 1977. (Go on and enjoy a little of it.)
Who would have thought falling in love would be easier than using it’s and its correctly?
We often write it’s—which is short for it is or it has—when we mean its,... (Read More)
I started this bulletin with an airtight agenda: Always write use, never utilize. It’s simpler and means the same thing. Utilize doesn’t sound professional, just pretentious.
That’s mostly true, but it turns out utilize shouldn’t be banished outright; it has a small place—just where took some investigating.
Utilize means to find a profitable or practical use for something, which is... (Read More)
“With every trip we work hard to earn your business and, most importantly, your satisfaction.”
So wrote United to its frequent flyers. Had the carrier written and, most important (not most importantly), my satisfaction would have soared. Flight delays, lost luggage, less leg room—why sweat the small stuff?
Most important is short for what is... (Read More)
