I just edited a bunch of case histories for a public relations firm. Most of the results cited increased visibility, which wasn’t surprising. Many companies strive for higher profiles and hire PR firms to help them do it. What was surprising is how fuzzy the word visibility sounded—not a good... (Read More)
I was recently on vacation in a cell phone-free zone. In the lounge of the hotel where I was staying, a sign invited me to leave my cell phone in my room. Its exact words were, If you want to use your phone, we invite you to use it in... (Read More)
When Aaron Bell, the CEO of an online advertising placement firm, interviewed with Microsoft when he was just 16 years old, he was asked, “How do you know the light goes off in the refrigerator when you close the door?” His response? “I would put my baby sister in the... (Read More)
I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to get to the full story—a humorous take on what to do about falling birth rates in upstate New York. The story, it turned out, wasn’t nearly as exciting as the headline, but that’s a topic for another bulletin.
Article titles, PowerPoint... (Read More)
(That’s my attempt at writing a “Jeopardy”-like clue.)
A milestone is, by definition, an important event, advancement, or development. Merriam-Webster goes one step further and defines it as a very important event.
So why do we tend to embellish this word with superfluous adjectives like important, major, and... (Read More)
She is untrustable, a political commentator said about Hillary Clinton the other day.
If you type that line using Word, a red squiggly mark will appear underneath untrustable telling you it’s not a word. She is not trustworthy, is what the pundit should have said.
People seem to... (Read More)
A friend presented me with the following two sentences and asked, “Which is correct?”
• “I walked; talking nonstop about anything to distract myself from the pain.”
• “I walked, talking nonstop about anything to distract myself from the pain.”
The second sentence—the version with the comma,... (Read More)
January’s mail is full of messages pegged to the year ahead. In the event you’re about to send one yourself, take note of the correct way to refer to the new year. My apologies if this post is too late for you; if it is, you can file it away... (Read More)
Thank you so much for your email – we love hearing from you!
That’s the first line from an email I received the other day. The dash in the middle of the sentence should have been a period. (Actually, it looks like a hyphen, but we’ll leave... (Read More)
No, I’m not going anywhere. I simply wanted to show you a correct use of the word until, which can always be shortened to till, but not to ’till or til, neither of which is considered correct. Type til in Word and a red squiggly mark will let you know... (Read More)
