Home › Posts tagged mistakes Introducing the first in a new series of mini blog posts about common writing mistakes. The difference between compliment vs. complement is one that catches a lot of people out. I often see them used incorrectly, as in “complimentary therapies”,… I recently overheard a radio news presenter refer to “less […]
Home › Posts tagged Christmas As a linguist, I’m always fascinated by how people in other countries use completely different words to effectively say the same thing. For this week’s blog post, I’ve therefore rounded up the many versions of Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas or… Continuing my series of blog posts on idioms, this latest […]
Having previously written posts about baking, cooking and dancing related idioms to tie in with popular TV shows, it seems only right to turn to pottery as we approach the final of this year’s The Great Pottery Throw Down. So,… Inspired by the OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2018 cycle race, which whizzed through leafy […]
Most people will be familiar with the terms gaggle of geese, litter of puppies, pride of lions and school of dolphins. Yet there are many other collective nouns for animals – known as “terms of venery” – that are less…
After much deliberation and soul-searching (well, procrastination followed by a much-needed nudge) I finally joined Twitter back in January 2015. Here’s what I’ve discovered during my first 6 months… It’s all in the open The most important thing to remember… Hello, my name is Geraldine and I’m a Twitter newbie… After much deliberation and shilly-shallying, I […]
Home › Archive for Grammar › Page 2 Every now and then I undertake a large proofreading job, such as a manual or an annual report. The most recent was a meaty 90,000-word operations manual. What I’ve noticed is that the same writing mistakes crop up time and… A recent query from a client reminded […]
Home › Archive for Grammar I’ve recently noticed a growing trend of people misusing – or, to be precise, failing to use – apostrophes in expressions of time. It seems to be fairly widespread, ranging from emails and newsletter content to blog posts and social… I recently overheard a radio news presenter refer to “less […]
Home › Posts tagged phrases › Page 2 Numerous Latin phrases and abbreviations have endured the test of time to still feature in English today, especially in the field of business and law. Yet many of them are incorrectly used, largely because people don’t always understand their specific purpose and… If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll […]
Having previously written posts about baking, cooking and dancing related idioms to tie in with popular TV shows, it seems only right to turn to pottery as we approach the final of this year’s The Great Pottery Throw Down. So,… Inspired by the OVO Energy Tour of Britain 2018 cycle race, which whizzed through leafy […]
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… A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence […]
This time last week I joined some 200 of my peers at Copy Cabana 2017 – the 2nd copywriters’ conference to be held in (not quite so sunny) Bournemouth. The event’s tagline is “Prepare to celebrate the life linguistic”. It certainly delivered on its… The inaugural Copy Cabana copywriting conference held yesterday at Silicon Beach in Bournemouth exceeded all my expectations. […]
Home › Posts tagged language As the final of this year’s Eurovision hits our screens tonight, I thought it would be apt to focus attention on English sayings that include a reference to a European country, city, nationality or language. So let’s kick off this post… As any non-native speakers learning English as a second language […]
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…
Home › Posts tagged lingo Losing the hammer. Blanking an end. Staying in the house. What on earth does it all mean? It can only be one thing… curling lingo. If, like me, you’ve been enjoying watching the British curling teams in action at the… My recent adventure on the high seas (well, the North […]