I received an email the other day from someone who sends a monthly financial newsletter. He opened his email with the following sentence:
This issue is packed with useful information and unique insights that will no doubt expand your understanding about economic issues that effect us all.
The writer should... (Read More)
A few weeks ago, when a hedge fund took a hit after some poor forecasts about the Greek political scene, the fund’s founders sent this message to their investors: “We are reticent to render decisive predictions at this time.”
They meant reluctant, which means unwilling or disinclined to do something.
... (Read More)When I came here, I was asked to lead the auction house to a new place, and we have successfully done that.
We elevated the collection of handbags to a place nobody had done before.
Your mission will be to develop a vision for how to take these already successful... (Read More)
The February issue of Vogue arrived, and I curled up to have a look at the super sexy dresses for spring. But first I read Anna Wintour’s account of Condé Nast’s relocation to 1 World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. “News of our move may or may not have come... (Read More)
The other day I read an opinion piece in The New York Times called “The ‘Kind of, Sort of’ Era” about our habit of using terms like kind of and sort of to take a little something away from what we’re saying, for whatever reason.
The next day I... (Read More)
“That’s what I call being shot out of the cannon.” “To be shot out of the cannon like that is just so exciting.”
Michael Kors, the quick-witted fashion designer, was quoted as having said both, the first by The New York Times, and the second, a slight variation, by The... (Read More)
The Supreme Court justices are bickering, but not about same-sex marriage, Obamacare, or voter identification. No, according to a Wall Street Journal story, they’re disagreeing about adverbs. Justice Scalia uses them; Associate Justice Kennedy does not. Kennedy sides with novelist Stephen King who says, “The adverb is not your... (Read More)
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)
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)
