I recently tried to read an article written by a woman who apparently regards herself as something of a communications guru. Unfortunately, the first (short) paragraph was a bit of a disaster. After reading it through slowly two or three … Continue reading
Back in the dim distant days of the fifth form, we had an English teacher who insisted that nice – in the sense of ‘pleasant or agreeable’ – could only apply to food. A ‘nice day’ or ‘a nice broad-brimmed … Continue reading
Recently, a dear friend (who is also an art tutor) was struggling to put together a manual. This woman knows her stuff. And she’s an eloquent speaker. But when she tried to produce a written version of some of the … Continue reading
The dog barked at the postie!!!!! See what I did there? I took a perfectly ordinary, unremarkable sentence and made it really exciting by adding a row of exclamation marks. Well, maybe not really exciting. In fact, not even a … Continue reading
On a shelf of the bookcase that sits at my elbow there are 17 dictionaries. Another three live, more or less permanently, on my desk. (Even in this speed-of-light online age, I still find myself referring to ‘paper’ dictionaries several … Continue reading
When I first started writing professionally, I wrote with a ballpoint pen on an unlined octavo-sized newsprint pad. My scribbled pages were then sent to Janice, who processed them on her Imperial typewriter before sending them on to the copy … Continue reading