Are you unique? That’s good. Are you very unique? Probably not. No, I’m not suggesting that individuality is a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing. And the word “unique” should be a very good word. Unfortunately, it’s misused so often that it is losing its uniqueness. In simple terms, “unique” means “singular” … Read more
There’s a common misconception about what people like me do for a living: that when our fingers make that initial contact with the keyboard, brilliance flows forth, creating first drafts that are truly works of art. The reality is quite different. If you read my typical first draft of copy for an article, a website, … Read more
Thanks to a handy tool within Microsoft Word and most other word processors, it’s easy to make your writing tighter and more powerful. That handy tool is the Word Count indicator. And here’s how you can use it to improve your writing: highlight whatever it is that you’re writing, whether that’s a page or a … Read more
Again and again, I see proof of professional reliance on spellcheckers instead of good old proofreading and editing. Case in point: a Northwest Indiana Times article about funding for safety improvements on the South Shore Railroad. The reporter included this bullet point: “Implementation of Positive Train Control, a federally mandated safety system that tracks the precise location … Read more
They can be painful. Of course, I’m referring to arguments about whether it’s okay to use those delightful little word combinations we call contractions. You know them: cannot becomes can’t, will not shortens to won’t, and so forth. When professional writers insert those handy contractions into copy, it often gives birth to a strange reaction … Read more
Strip and stripe are two words that look similar and are pronounced differently. More important, they convey strikingly different meanings. And yet both and their derivatives are constantly being used incorrectly by people who don’t know better. If you see a Facebook post selling a “striped” piece of furniture, it means one of two things. … Read more
One of the most misused sets of homophones — words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have vastly different meanings — is the principal/principle pair. I recently read a notice about a new project that included a “principle” address as its location. I’ve seen organizations boast about their “guiding principals.” And I’ve seen … Read more
One of the subjects I discuss most often is the tendency to use bigger words when smaller ones are actually more communicative. I blame it on a desire to sound more educated and impressive (and I think it goes back to those papers we wrote in college, when we tried to mask our ignorance by … Read more
Are there certain things that people don’t know but should, and that drives you to distraction? For me, one of the biggest is the difference between features and benefits. While that distinction has been talked about for years, and successful communications and sales professionals invariably advocate for emphasizing benefits over features, there continues to be a … Read more
Far too many people spatter what they write with words that don’t really need to be there. One of the best examples is the word “appropriate.” People have a tendency to work it into sentences to make them sound more important, even though that extra word really doesn’t add any value. A typical example? “Once … Read more