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.
Every industry has its jargon. But some words and phrases can be unclear, unnecessary, or even offensive. Maybe some of these are phrases you like building into your business vocab, but use them with caution. If you’re going to offend or annoy someone, or if there’s a clearer way to say something, why not go the easy way?
Our little caveat: every office has different protocol.
Let’s dispel another spelling mystery. It’s defense against defence, and if you think it’s one of the British English vs. American English things—you might be onto something.
Defence and defense are both correct ways to spell the same word. The difference between them, the fact that one’s spelled with a “c” and the other with an “s”, comes down to the part of the world in which they are used.
Amongst and among mean the same thing, but among is most common, particularly in American English. Both words are prepositions that mean “into, surrounded by; in the midst of, so as to influence; with a share for each of; in the number, class, or group of; mutually; or by all or with the whole of.”
Linda Richman, a Saturday Night Live character, would often give her audience an interesting topic to ponder, such as “The peanut is neither a pea nor a nut,” delivering the line in an exaggerated New York accent.
You probably know that the choice between is vs. are depends on a noun. In most sentences, the noun comes before the verb.
Difficult people can quickly turn your dream job into a nightmare if you let them. However, your happiness and productivity are worth the fight. Let’s consider the best ways to deal with challenging personalities.
In “Man in the Mirror,” a song recorded by Michael Jackson, the lyrics provide an effective formula for improving your environment: “Take a look at yourself, and then make a change.” Self-examination might reveal that you are overreacting to a situation.
If you read a lot, you probably have an excellent vocabulary. But it also means that you may know a lot of words that you’ve only seen in writing and never heard spoken aloud. Sometimes even common words are easy to misread. Language enthusiasts have coined the term “misle” for a word that leads you to incorrect assumptions about its pronunciation. It comes from the word misled (as in, the past tense of mislead), which many language lovers admit to misreading at one time or another as the past tense of some imaginary verb along the lines of “to misle.”
The workplace is constantly evolving, with new generations coming in as the older ones retire. For the many professionals caught in between these two age groups, it’s important to adapt to new work styles. The millennial generation has complicated this even further. There have been reports that some millennials aren’t as quick to adapt to new work environments, but rather sometimes expect businesses to change to meet their needs.
The Not-So-Sweet 16 round of March MADness has begun! So far, we’ve started the voting for work chat pet peeves, and these two contenders are both pretty atrocious. Which habit annoys you more? Vote below!
Early-Morning Chatters
These folks are up in the wee small hours of the morning, sending out updates to group chats—either pinging you awake as you catch your last few hours of sleep or inundating your mornings with messages to attend to.
In November, Grammarly worked with around 300 writers from 27 countries (and 44 U.S. states) to write a group novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). We called the project #GrammoWriMo; and, clocking in at a total of 130,927 unedited words, we are proud to say that our draft was among the 41,940 completed!
We kicked off the editing process right away by running the text of the novel through our automated proofreader to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes.
What is more special than a promise? As children (and let’s be honest, as adults, too) we valued promises highly among our friends and family. The act of promising and the act of being worth promising something to elevates our relationships. It’s a perfect example of how beautiful and powerful words can be.
There are a lot of amazing activities we do with words and language.
Cell phones hit the free market 30 years ago, but Americans still haven’t internalized a complete set of social rules for cell phone usage. If you’re not sure what’s acceptable in the world of cell phone etiquette, check out these five tips in honor of Cell Phone Courtesy Month in July.
When you’re engrossed in a phone conversation, it’s easy to fool yourself into believing that no one can hear you except the person on the other end of the line.
Writers have a lot on their plates. They have to fend off writer’s block, perform meticulous research, and ensure the content they produce captivates their target audiences. They must pay close attention to catch grammatical errors, misspellings, punctuation mistakes, and typos. Formatting often takes a backseat on a writer’s priority list–especially when it involves something so seemingly trivial as indentation.
You’re jittery, sweaty, and unable to focus. What had seemed like the perfect dose of java to power all your feats of Monday superheroism has betrayed you.
In the throes of a caffeine come-down, as you blearily attempt to finish drafting your project update, you swear:
“I’m going to quit coffee.”
Though there are good reasons for healthy people to consume coffee in moderation, some individuals may find themselves overdoing it or may be simply too sensitive to the acidity or caffeine.
How do you feel when you can’t communicate your ideas or emotions? If you find it frustrating, why not make a study of communication skills? Learning to communicate is like learning to swim. You progress from breathing exercises in a few feet of water to practicing laps in deeper water. Before you know it, you’re ready for the diving board. Let’s review some books, starting with some simple fixes based on personal experiences.
Each vs. every is a common grammar issue, even for proficient writers, because let’s face it—they’re very similar words. Although both words refer to something that is singular, each refers to an individual object or person, while the term every refers to a group of objects or people lumped together as one. For example, consider the following sentences:
The past continuous tense, also known as the past progressive tense, refers to a continuing action or state that was happening at some point in the past. The past continuous tense is formed by combining the past tense of to be (i.e., was/were) with the verb’s present participle (-ing word).
There are many situations in which this verb tense might be used in a sentence.
As we get nearer to the end of December, we are reminded of why it’s called the most wonderful time of the year. It’s the season of holidays, with Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Mawlid usually celebrated within a month of one another. And then there’s the New Year, a great opportunity to commit ourselves to plans and resolutions we’ll never actually make good on. This time of year is a great opportunity to remind ourselves of some of the words we have at our disposal to express all the wonder that’s going on.
An en dash is a mid-sized dash (longer than a hyphen but shorter than an em dash) that is mostly used to show ranges in numbers and dates. It can also be used for clarity in forming complex compound adjectives. The en dash derives its name from the fact that it is meant to be the same width as the letter N.
A properly executed en dash is especially important in scientific and mathematical writing because it is used between numbers to represent the wordto.
