There’s a nasty little punctuation habit that instantly gives your age away. It’s called the comma splice, and I’ve noticed it’s mostly used by writers under the age of 35.
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Sometime last year our traffic wardens became “civil enforcement officers”. Actually, there had been an intermediary stage I’d missed when they were known as “parking attendants”.
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Unsure about how to use the apostrophe? It’s the one piece of punctuation people will judge you for if you get it wrong. Here are twelve rules you need to know.
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Using the word “around” in a deliberate attempt to be less direct can make you sound like a mealy-mouthed bureaucrat.
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Why is it that when it comes to the English language many business folk seem to think that getting it wrong makes them sound impressive?
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It’s an apostrophe question many people struggle with, so I thought my answer warranted a post of its own.
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More proof that those who run the country don't care about standards of literacy in the UK. The minister responsible for education (repeat: for education) has been criticised for having a blog rife with spelling mistakes.
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I'm all for rules – provided we know why we're following them. But slavish obedience to what you were taught at school reveals an uncritical mind.
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A message to M&S in these bleak days for retail: fire the copywriter you pay to come up with all those silly descriptors.
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Still obviously the silly season if this story about Tesco makes the BBC news, but interesting for us language nuts.
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Bad business writing is awash with filler verbs such as “driving”, “delivering”, “focusing on” and “achieving”.
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Reading noun-heavy prose is like having to complete an obstacle course, in which every word you encounter slows you down and depletes you of the energy to read on.
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Like Capricorns and rottweilers the apostrophe just takes a little bit of time to get to know. Take the time to understand him and you’ve got a friend for life.
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The split infinitive causes more than its fair share of tooth gnashing and garment rending. But why? Let's take a calm, balanced look at the rule and its history.
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Wouldn't your prose be that little bit more impactful, impressive, heck, downright important-sounding if you capitalised a few words?
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