Welcome to the blog – advice, opinions and musings on how to make words work
If you ever struggle with writing at work, take comfort in knowing that to do it at all should be impossible. In fact, the whole idea of communicating through the written word sounds preposterous when you break it down. If someone were to pitch it as a business idea...
The strange thing about writer's block is often it's not writing that's the problem at all. It's thinking. 'Thinking is to humans as swimming is to...
Struggling to write is a universal human experience. We all find it hard to some degree, as I've explained before. But if the key word is 'human',...
It's tempting to think that writing comes easily to everyone but ourselves. But if we could see inside their heads, we'd probably find that their...
An embarrassing mishap befell me during my recent summer break. It happened when I was searching for the bathroom in an unfamiliar West Country pub....
I found myself in a strange situation recently – I was approaching a long Zoom call with genuine excitement. It was a webinar by an expert I'd just...
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Telling someone they need help with their writing rarely lands well. You may be right. They may even agree with you. But they'll still probably feel...
One of the biggest dangers of relying on AI writing bots is perhaps not the most obvious. It’s not that what they produce is inferior to human...
Most of us don't like the way we look in photos. We wince slightly when we glance at a picture that includes us. Despite how it might feel, though,...
Let's start out with a quick question. Look at the line on the left in the image below. Which one on the right do you think is most similar: A, B or...
Grammar is about the rules that structure language. Knowing and using grammar effectively is a sure-fire way to make sure you are understood, which...
SEO (search engine optimisation) is often high on the business agenda. Being found online by prospects is vital for most organisations – so at some...
The language women use in meetings could be holding them back in business, according to new research. The study, an 18-month long examination of the...
Blog reader Bill Friar got in touch with us to air one of his professional writing bugbears: ‘I would dearly love to see an item on the...
It’s not often that punctuation makes the headlines. But the uproar over the apparent threat to the Oxford comma has proved that passion for...
A Sussex-based brewery has upset fans of punctuation with its inconsistent use of apostrophes. Apostrophe Protection Society member Jonathan Cook...
Program(me): it’s a useful word. It can refer to code for a computer (or the writing of such code), the printed running order of a performance...
As we’ve just established when it should be program or programme, now seems a fitting time to ask: is it disk or disc? And is this another set...
There’s a phrase you’re bound to need to use when writing a CV, a bio for a proposal, or showing off in a World of Warcraft chat room, to prove how...
Hello, I’m Cathy, and I’m a sub-editor (scourge of the newsroom, pedant and dictionary botherer). As such, my job is to spot...
English is, to quote The Economist, the language of global business. You may feel you already have many of the secrets of better business writing at...
Brace yourselves: there are two spellings for judgement/judgment. ‘Aha!’ we hear you say. ‘This is an American thing, isn’t...
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