By Laura Wallis for The Stir by CafeMom
When I was a kid my family moved a few times. Once, I had just started the third grade, and my class was beginning the cursive writing unit. When I arrived at my new school, that lesson was already done. So I was left to teach the skill to myself, by following the letter charts above the blackboard.
To this day, my handwriting is atrocious.
Every office has its own sort of language—vocabulary that people frequently use when they’re at work but probably wouldn’t use that often otherwise. We’re used to office jargon, but we’d like to take a minute to review some of the business-y words that do the job while kind of driving us crazy at the same time. Jargon varies from office to office, but here are five of the words and phrases that make us cringe.
by Laura K. Lawless, writer at eLearnEnglishLanguage.com
Everyone makes mistakes when writing, sometimes due to simple typos, and other times because they just don’t know any better. Most people can spot their own typos when proofreading, but that only works when you know that it’s a mistake—what about when you don’t? Even native speakers mix up words that either look similar or have similar meanings, but there are simple techniques that can help you avoid some of these common mistakes.
Five hundred years ago, gentlemen used specialized vocabulary when referring to groups of animals. Most of the group names came from The Book of St. Albans, published in 1486. Their etymologies have been lost over the years, but why not have a guess?
Around the eighteenth century, some French farmers called côtiers banded together to work feudal lands.
If you have ever taken a writing or literature class, you probably heard someone refer to a protagonist.
Guest post by Rosevita Warda
“The status of English as an international language is long established and, for the foreseeable future, unlikely to be greatly challenged. However, I believe that to make it genuinely international, then one step in that direction could be to consider the influence of non-native speakers in a different light.
“Generally, their non-occurrent uses are labeled errors and they are encouraged to change to conform to the standard English model, even though many native speakers don’t.
You are battling toward the nexus in a 5v5-ranked game late on a Wednesday night. You have to work the next day and know you are not going to get enough sleep. But fear not! Your dedication to League of Legends is helping more than just your online rep. It’s helping you to be a better team player by teaching you these five valuable lessons in communicating under pressure.
Amateur Something or someone that is amateur is non-professional. If you remember that amateur ends in a fancy French suffix (-eur), you’ll be able to spell this word correctly in both professional and non-professional situations.
Conscientious Conscientious means thorough, careful, or vigilant. If you have a strong conscience, you will be conscientious. You can remember the conscience by breaking it into “con” and “science.” Then the similarities between conscience and conscientious will help you remember the spelling for the latter.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! While you’re drinking green beer and counting shamrock leaves, you might end up debating a popular St. Patrick’s Day question: is it St. Patty’s Day or St. Paddy’s Day?
It’s easy to think that Patrick ought to be shortened to “Patty.” The name contains a T rather than a D, after all. However, “Paddy” comes from the Irish name Padraig, which is the reason St.
The rules for using quotation marks can seem complicated, but once you understand the basic principles, it’s not so bad.
The cover letter was once a valuable tool for all job seekers hoping to get by the HR gatekeeper. However, the rise of innovative tech, social media, millennials, and good old-fashioned networking is killing the cover letter.
The only thing missing from the decline of the cover letter is a time of death. In fact, chances are your cover letter won’t even be read, according to Fortune.
Guest Post from Brie Weiler Reynolds
It’s tempting, especially for those in writing professions, to assume you can proofread your own resume just as well as anyone else. After all, you know your work history, the message you’re trying to convey to employers, and how you want to convey yourself, right? There are, however, some very good reasons to have someone else proof your resume.
May the Fourth be with you!
Today may be a day dedicated to puns, fandom, and a galaxy far, far away, but it probably doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly learned a Jedi mind trick to keep your manager from asking for that project, presentation, or report. If you’re like me, you’re trapped at work, wishing you could be cosplaying The Force Awakens with your family or baking an R2-D2 cake.
Unless you’re really lucky, you’ll have some time between taking your last step out of your college and your first step into a new job. You can spend that time trying to have as much fun as you can, basically prolonging the college experience as long as possible. You can spend that time trying to figure things out, yourself included. You can travel, paint, or volunteer.
If you’re too old to be frightened by scary costumes, and you’ve watched so many horror movies that nothing can give you the chills anymore, you might think you’re preparing for a thrill-free Halloween. But we beg to differ. Creepier than the most realistic Halloween costumes, darker than the most terrifying horror movies, there are grammar mistakes—ghoulish and gnarly and gloomy and many other adjectives starting with the letter g.
Practice with a C or practise with an S—which spelling is correct? In American English, practice is always right. In British English, whether practice or practise is the correct choice depends on its role in the sentence. How can you know which form to use?
In American English, practice may function as a noun or a verb. Regardless of its role in the sentence, the correct spelling is always practice with a C.
Interrupters are little thoughts in the middle of a thought, added to show emotion, tone or emphasis. When we use an interrupter in the middle of a sentence, it should be emphasized with commas. This is because without the use of commas, the flow of the sentence may be awkward for the reader.
Interrupters are easily identified by saying the sentence out loud; you’ll naturally pause where the commas should be.
I’m currently finishing up a university degree in journalism, and I’ve been doing journalistic work for newspapers and radio alike for some years now. It’s a line of work wherein proofreading is essential. People are paying to read a piece you’ve written, which means you simply…
Read more: WriteWorld: Writing Tips: Proofreading
Conquering Email in the Workplace How the right approach is a key ingredient to your future success.
Whether you are just starting your career or simply settling in at a new environment, the initial adjustment period can be a bit tricky. One important discipline that threatens the spirit of many new hires is deciding how to craft their emails appropriately. And by craft, I am alluding to all factors: the length, tone, style, closing signature and even who to copy.
