As a professional writer of web content, I am constantly fielding queries about what is and isn’t appropriate in terms of written communications and language use. Here are my responses to three of the most oft-repeated questions, one of which I didn’t just make up.
Question: R txt msg abbs apropri8 4 wrk? (Are text message abbreviations appropriate for work?)
Answer: It would certainly depend on your individual work environment. If you work for a narcotics trafficking organization, then yes, they’re perfectly fine. If you work anywhere else, then no.
Question: Is there a real difference between: they’re, their and there? Most of my reading is in Tweet form, where they are used interchangeably.
Answer: Excellent question. Yes, there is a significant difference. They’re, their and there are what are known as homophones. Homophones are words that are pronounced similarly (or even identically) when spoken, but might have wildly different meanings and uses, and are often (but not always) spelled differently. While this is a natural occurrence in the evolution of language, it nonetheless is the source of many hilarious misunderstandings involving the term “seaman.”
Read More
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know that good jobs are hard to find and the competition is stiffer than ever. However, to say that the methods used by companies and potential employees to find one another have changed a tad in the last ten years or so would be a gross understatement. The birth and evolution of social media have shattered the antiquated process of carefully crafting a résumé on a typewriter (with a bottle of Liquid Paper in hand, of course) and then pounding the pavement to hand-deliver it to as many companies as possible. With all facets of the job/employee hunt shifting to the interwebs, does the old-school, paper résumé still hold any relevance in today’s world?
Read More
That’s it, folks. Germany took the Cup. Sorry to spoil it for anyone who didn’t follow the 2014 FIFA World Cup and somehow missed every news outlet on the Interwebs.
So now what? We all pack up and go home, right? That’s certainly what most of the estimated 3.7 million World Cup tourists who invaded Brazil for four weeks are doing, and they’re likely happy about it. Custo Brazil has led to, I’m sure, more than one tourist’s rainy day fund getting completely drained.
Read More
Phew. It feels good to get that off my chest.
I feel I’m bit of a fraud. I’m a writer and a wordsmith; I was raised to love words and the complex emotions, ideas, and concepts that they can convey. And yet, I believe I am an active participant in a trend that is contributing to the destruction of not just the English language, but written language in general. What is this scourge in which I am a willing (if guilty) participant? It’s the cutest scourge EVAR! Emojis.
Read More
Under normal circumstances, bounciness is a good thing. I mean, obviously no one wants a basketball that doesn’t bounce, and a non-bouncy inflatable jumping castle is just lame. One place you don’t want bouncing, though, is your website. A site’s bounce rate—that is, the percentage of visitors who pop over to your site and right back out again without exploring past the landing page– directly impacts your search engine rankings. Luckily, there are a few tricks you can use to reduce your bounce rate… and one of them is high-quality writing.
