Over the years, I have been lucky enough to meet some really interesting people. Or perhaps, more accurately, I have been lucky enough to meet some people with really interesting things to say. Over a cup of coffee – or, … Continue reading
A friend phoned the other day to ask if I thought that prognose was a real word. I assured her that it was. But I also said that she was unlikely to find it in an everyday dictionary. And her … Continue reading
Words have always fascinated me. Even before I could read I wanted to know why certain words were the way they were. Unfortunately, there has never been any shortage of people ready and willing to provide answers. Take bloody – … Continue reading
Alec Issigonis, the Greek-born British racing driver and designer of the Morris Minor and the original Mini, once observed that, when a committee sets out to design a horse, the result is usually a camel. Well, perhaps. If you are … Continue reading
Recently, I happened upon a newspaper that had somehow managed to avoid the recycling bin for more than 80 years. The paper itself had taken on the colour of lightly-brewed tea, and some of the pages were a bit frayed … Continue reading
‘It’s been said that writing comes more easily if you have something to say.’ – Sholem Asch
Over the past few weeks I’ve been rereading Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Churchill was a lifelong history fan. He was also an excellent writer. He began writing the four-volume history in 1937. But it wasn’t until … Continue reading
A UK entrepreneur, Charles Duncombe, believes that poor spelling is costing online merchants millions of pounds in lost sales every week. Mr Duncombe says ‘when you sell or communicate on the internet, 99% of the time it is done by … Continue reading
I recently received some information from an organisation that, I understand, considers it warrants the epithet august. The information was in a document that ran to just over 1500 words. Eighty-two of these words were in the first sentence. The … Continue reading
Here’s a true story. A good friend of ours runs a small marketing consultancy. A little while back, his firm was pitching against several much larger rivals for a contract to help launch a new courier service. As the days … Continue reading