Whether you’re creating your succession plan or your secession plan, it’s good to think it through—yes, even with your spelling.
Even the best of ideas can fall through without the right attention to detail. Maybe you’ve learned that the hard way. Maybe you’ve learned it by a typo hitting you in the face. (This is absolutely one that can do that.)More
I have dreams of someday someone opening up my grammar book and saying, “dude, that’s sick,” with “sick” meaning awesome. If they said, “it’s [sic],” I’d be super bummed. So bummed I would “sick” or “sic” a dog after them? No. That seems a bit over the top, don’t you think? But I needed to see how else to get these words into the story.
You probably never realized how complicated “sick” vs. “sic” could be.More
I find it fascinating when typos are so common that online stores consider them and can redirect these mistakes to what you actually need. Maybe home improvement stores do this with spigots already when someone searches for a “spicket,” but what’s gotten my attention lately is the mistake of “manila” vs. “vanilla” folders.
Do you know what they are actually called?More
If a “happy meal” once made you excited as a kid, would a “peace meal” make you excited as a grown up? “Happy” is good, but “peace” is a larger group undertaking. I know it’s not that simple, but I like the idea of a “peace meal,” even if this isn’t the actual spelling of the word.
What are we actually talking about?
To do something bit by bit. To do it in pieces. More
A few stolen minutes out of your day to talk words and communication. Let’s talk language tips for the curious or confused. Welcome to episode three of season three.
The Irish author Samuel Beckett once wrote, “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” I love this idea, in talking about communication skills as well as so many other areas of life.
People can be so scared of failure or doing something incorrectly. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. But what can we achieve if we don’t try?
Think fast, should it be one or two words? Or should it be hyphenated?
“Line up” or “lineup” or “line-up”? It’s one of those language questions that can have you staring at the blinking cursor on your screen. Hopefully, this quandary isn’t one that crosses the line of something that has you blinking and cursing at your screen.
But when I ask, “which version is correct,” it’s admittedly a bit of a trick question. It can be one word or two, depending on your goals with it.More
No matter how you’re using your words, in emails or essays, poetry or presentations, you’ve got to start somewhere. Maxwell Perkins, the book editor best known for the writers he discovered including Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, once said, “Just get it down on paper, and then we’ll see what to do about it.”
No matter what you’re writing or planning to say, it’s true, isn’t it? Just get it down. Just spit it out. Nothing can be carved into a masterpiece if you don’t even have the lump of clay to work with.
Being an English language and grammar pro isn’t a matter of what degrees you’ve earned or what witty pun you might have on your coffee mug. Oh, yes, I’m talking to you with your, “The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense” mug. Sure, I love it. Looking to comfort a word-lover? “There, their, they’re.” (Okay, that one makes much more sense if you could see the different spellings).
But witty mug in hand or not, let’s keep working on our words, and let’s keep amusing ourselves and discovering their fascinating roots along the way.
Does “troubleshot” make you think of that photo bomb that wasn’t your wisest decision? Is it a penalty kick in a tied game? Does it make you think of that last two ounces of tequila that you just shouldn’t have agreed to?
I’m okay with these definitions. I think they are all “trouble-shots” in their own way. But you know how you also need to think of “troubleshot”? It’s the past tense of “troubleshoot.”
Yep, it’s true.More
Sometimes, you’ve just got to go with the flow, unless you’re riding along on an iceberg. Then, perhaps, it’s time to reconsider—your spelling among other things.
Actually, an “iceberg” is a bit misleading. When we’re talking about an “ice floe,” we’re not talking about giant mountains of ice.More
Here’s that moment when you pause and think: pennies are made of copper; nickels are made of nickel. Is there a coin made of brass? Or is there some brass purchasing tax we just aren’t aware of?
Or was it something of a different era? Did Robin Hood steal money from the rich and give to the poor all because of that brass tax? Or does this have to do with a tea party in Boston? No brass taxation without representation? No, that’s not right.
There are so many stories I could imagine here—though, okay, fine, I’ll stop now—but it’s time to get down to the truth of this:More