Posted on 21/07/2015 by Geraldine — 4 Comments ↓ 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… Posted on 21/01/2015 by Geraldine — […]
The summer holidays are drawing to a close, which means it’s almost time for the kids to go back to school. It seems fitting, therefore, to take a look at education-related idioms as the next in my series. As is the case with all idioms, school idioms are an integral part of the English language. […]
Have you ever met someone whose surname was a perfect fit for the job they do? Or, indeed, an unfortunate pairing such as a goalkeeper called Dropsy*? I’ve been pondering writing about this subject for a while, inspired by Mr Macro – a Maths teacher at my sons’ school – and Mr Cure, our orthodontist. But what […]
Let me start by saying that I’m rather fond of semicolons. But I’m not so enamoured when they’re used incorrectly or ineffectively… Out of all the punctuation marks in English, the one that seems to catch most people out is the semicolon (sometimes written as semi-colon). Many people – including a lot of writers/editors judging from […]
I’ve been a bit remiss with my blogging lately, but I felt compelled to publish one today as Britain takes to the polls in the historic EU referendum. Don’t worry; this post is going to stay well away from politics. Instead,…
Like the majority of people, I take reading and writing for granted – whether that’s jotting down a shopping list, filling out a form, sending a text, browsing the newspaper or surfing online. Yet 1 in 5 adults don’t enjoy…
Like many freelance copywriters, a large portion of my business comes via personal referrals from people I’ve previously worked for – sometimes several years ago. Not surprisingly, word of mouth is considered to be the most effective marketing tool, because…
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…
Instead of setting myself the usual vague New Year’s resolutions I decided this year to sign up to a personal challenge: to walk 1000 miles during 2017. So it seems only right that my first blog post of the year should… Posted in Idioms Tagged with: sayings, walk, walking
Thanks again, you’ve made a difficult process much easier and saved hours of my life from me deliberating over commas! Posted in Uncategorised I’ve known Geraldine for years and she really knows her stuff. Have been using her for some new projects recently and as well as great copywriting, she’s extremely easy to work with. […]
The Apostralypse The humble apostrophe may be small and trivial to some, but its correct usage brings disproportionate pleasure to all us grammar geeks. My personal bugbears are apostrophes used in plural nouns or decades (1980’s makes me cringe every time), or when it’s is used instead of its and vice versa. Apostrophe mistakes are everywhere – in newspapers, adverts and promotional flyers, […]
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…
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…
Like many others, I turned to various creative pursuits for a welcome distraction during lockdown. One of these was rediscovering a favourite childhood pastime: jigsaws. Not only has this helped take my mind off other things these past few months,…