What’s strange about a noisy, Spanish, large, talking orange parrot? Did you have to read that twice? I bet you did if your first language is English.Why? Because the adjectives are in the wrong order. Most of us aren’t aware of this guideline (I certainly...
Human development is hard on the environment. Cities block nature’s way—damming rivers, building highways, destroying habitat, and cutting off migration paths. But there’s a lock in Europe where humans can become nature’s unexpected helpers...
Ever seen TL;DR on an article or in a comment and wondered what it means? I’m generally opposed to acronyms and abbreviations, but this made me laugh when I looked it up. It means too long, didn’t read. It’s what I wanted to say to my dad last week...
I say it’s fake. Best-selling author Josh Bernoff wrote, “the fuzzy, terrible writing we slog through every day at work” costs American businesses nearly $400 billion every year. He found that people in business spend 6 per cent of total wages trying...
Last week Kylie Miller and I were teaching our new Get It Write program with a team. We start by talking about the importance of being human in our writing. One participant challenged us on this notion. He said simple, clear, plain English is fine when communicating...
