You might find rules that say it’s okay to use that with people or with terms like team and partner that denote people, but in business writing—where companies want to sound human—it’s best to use who when referring to people or entities made up of people.
Consider the difference between... (Read More)
“Who wrote this crap?”
Steven Pinker often asks himself that question when he’s reviewing his work. “Who’s Steven Pinker?” you might ask. He’s a professor at Harvard, chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and author of a new book on writing, The Sense of... (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)
Right up there with people saying I when they should say me—and me when they should say I—is the wholesale misuse of myself. Here’s the deal. (If my explanation falls short, Grammar Girl is good and clear on this one.)
Myself (like yourself, herself, himself, and themselves) is a... (Read More)
Seth Godin, who says wise things in his daily blog, made me wince after my last note, the one about keeping impact-the-verb to descriptions of wisdom teeth.
In writing about the myths of getting on “a short list,” he said (the italics are mine):
“It’s easy to seduce... (Read More)
Affect is a good, strong verb that’s been shoved aside by one best kept to talk about wisdom teeth.
In each of the sentences below, impact means to affect, a word far more pleasing to the senses than one that has in its definitions bad effect, hit something, great force,... (Read More)
I got an email with a special offer to help me manage my money. “Learn how to take control of your financial life! A live webinar, instructional videos, and one-on-one coaching are just the tip of the iceberg! Let me know if you have any questions!”
And then came another... (Read More)
The business world is drunk on the word leverage, particularly as a verb. Here’s a shot of what I’ve read recently but not fully understood.
• The company is going to leverage its savings across diverse markets.
• Our program leverages the behaviors of its users.
•... (Read More)
