It stalks the thick jungles of prose, confounding even the most experienced grammar explorer or navigator, yet it’s a gentle, mistaken, and forlorn creature. What am I talking about? The hyphen—the piece of punctuation that not even seasoned editors can seem to get right.
Super high-profile ad agencies and industry giants, despite large budgets and an intelligent workforce, are known to make hyphen mistake after mistake, unable to get a handle on correct hyphen usage.
Happy Mother’s Day! How are you celebrating? Breakfast in bed? A handmade card? For many people, an even bigger question than what to do for Mother’s Day is where to place the apostrophe in Mother’s Day.
Some people write “Mothers’ Day,” based on the logic that it is the day to celebrate all mothers. Others simply write “Mothers Day,” leaving out the apostrophe altogether, possibly because they’re unsure of where to place it.
You took this job because you wanted to grow, try different things, and face new challenges. You wanted to expand your skillset—to learn by doing something you’d never done before.
Instead, it feels like you’re flailing. Like a golden retriever wearing a necktie, you have no idea what you’re doing, do you? Given your historic string of gaffes, it’s only a matter of time before someone calls you out for the fraud you are.
Every social circle has that one friend who occasionally “stalks” people online. Don’t be alarmed. It’s more common than you might realize and can give you greater perspective on your career path. You mention someone’s first name to the group, and moments later . . . voila! Your friend has found that person’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.
In my group of friends, that investigative person is me.
It’s not a good look, but it happens: for busy, highly caffeinated workers in a deadline-driven world, it’s perilously easy to send an email that reads as callous and unfeeling.
Your humble blogger included, we’ve all been guilty at times, hurriedly mashing “send” and moving on without acknowledging whatever favor or question we’ve imposed upon a trusted colleague or potentially valuable contact.
