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To coincide with the latest series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, I thought it would be fun to compare life as a copywriter to that of a participant on this popular reality TV show. Drawing on my 18…

Am I just becoming more pedantic as I get older? Or is there a general decline in grammar today? Either way, I’ve recently noticed a rise in basic grammatical mistakes, including the increasingly rampant comma splice. And it’s starting to bug me, hence the reason for writing this post. What is the comma splice? First off, what […]

Recent weeks have seen some pretty extreme weather conditions in certain parts of the world. While many Australians swelter in excessive heat, parts of the U.S. have – quite literally – been buried under several feet of snow. So it’s not surprising that a whole batch of words and phrases have popped up on social media […]

As any non-native speakers learning English as a second language soon discover, English is a funny language! Not only has its vocabulary derived from several European language families, but there are also numerous paradoxes and inconsistencies that are a real test of…

Am I just becoming more pedantic as I get older? Or is there a general decline in grammar today? Either way, I’ve recently noticed a rise in basic grammatical mistakes, including the increasingly rampant comma splice. And it’s starting to bug me,…

Having just spent a week in France – which required me to once again summon up my rusty French – it struck me that there are numerous French words and phrases we use in everyday English. As a linguist I thought… Posted in Language Tagged with: French, phrases, words

At this time of year, many people automatically recycle their Christmas tree, greetings cards and wrapping paper. Some even repurpose cards into gift tags to use next year (I did it once, but keep forgetting to use them!). But have you thought…

One of the questions I’m often asked when I tell people at networking events that I’m a copywriter is whether I ghostwrite blog posts or articles for clients. The answer I give is ‘yes’ – because I do offer a…

The hyphen may be small, but its presence – or absence – in a word can make an enormous difference to the meaning. The English language includes several instances of words where the decision to add or leave out a hyphen can matter. A lot. And I made it my mission to find them… It […]

TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged. Today it covers a diverse range of topics in more than 100 languages. Not only are TED Talks videos entertaining, informative and thought provoking, but they’re also short (generally 18 minutes or less, with many under 10). Not surprisingly, the TED Talks […]

One of the questions I’m often asked when I tell people at networking events that I’m a copywriter is whether I ghostwrite blog posts or articles for clients. The answer I give is ‘yes’ – because I do offer a blogging service – but I’ve always regarded it as sitting within the broader umbrella of […]

The world of freelance copywriting has undergone huge changes since I began back in October 1996 (was it really that long ago?). It didn’t happen overnight though; it’s been a gradual process over many years. Overall, the changes have been positive and certainly make my job more interesting… The online revolution Copywriting used to have […]

As yet another fabulous series of Strictly Comes Dancing nears its conclusion (I’m a bit of a fan, in case you were wondering) it seems apt to focus on dancing idioms for the next post in my series. So, without further…

Most people are familiar with common literary devices such as similes, metaphors and alliteration. Yet there are numerous other devices that are frequently used – both in literature and in everyday speech – without getting the recognition they deserve. What exactly are literary devices? According to Literary Devices, the term commonly refers to the typical structures used […]