I watched an old episode of Spicks and Specks recently, which closed with this great Weird Al Yankovic clip. It’s a parody of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues and very clever. Here’s an example from the lyrics. Rise to vote, sir Do geese...
Recently I came across a website advocating plain English.It made me happy, so I read further.The Australian Clinical Trials Alliance advocated a plain language title for research so people could find and understand it.“In the case of clinical research, the audience...
𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐞.𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐧𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰.𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬, 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭. I teach 𝐆𝐞𝐭 𝐈𝐭 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 to help people take their writing from clunky to compelling. But we all get it wrong sometimes, and the results can be really...
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Plain English Bill going through the New Zealand parliament. The bill passed – it’s now law! This piece in The Age by David Astle describes why plain language is so important and introduces Milton A Smith’s concept...
Bad writing is the bane of my life.It takes more time to read and make sense of bad writing. It’s frustrating red-penning lousy work.It’s a huge cost to business.Consider this.Jo works in a large organisation and spends about 15 minutes each day trying to make sense...
My partner and I had a holiday weekend in a hotel in regional Victoria recently and enjoyed the walk-in, walk-out, no-need-to-prep-anything experience of our luxury hotel room. I handed over my driver’s licence at check-in, which was photocopied. I didn’t...
