Nothing makes me happier than reading stories about the imminent demise of ‘social media networking’, even when they’re published in my least favourite newspaper. But wouldn’t you know… just as everyone else is growing out of this puerile nonsense, the World Economic Forum (who are meeting for their annual shin-dig in Davos this week) are embracing it.
Reading about “high level round table talks” this week left me feeling a touch vertiginous. I began to worry about spinning out of control. The words took on a life of their own, reinventing themselves in my mind. I started to think it was I who coined the natty little word ‘co2ts’. Trouble was I just couldn’t remember how to pronounce it. So I turned to Google.
Where would we be without Google? Answer: China. › Continue reading
Paranoia is not a kind word, and kind words are what I have been seeking for a long time now. I’ve tried to shut out the suspicions that nag. I have even clasped my hands over my ears but that only makes the laughter louder – I mean of course the monstrous guffaws of the conspirators who laugh at editorial staff everywhere. So how satisfying to see one of them unmasked this week at the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war.
Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t written about the conspiracy recently – that is the one to make a mockery of editors everywhere, to turn language into meaningless noise, to pollute our every moment with confusing messages and meaningless drivel, to litter our lives with the pointless delusion that we exist for a purpose, when in fact we are all drones serving the smug and swanky who think they’ve got the better of us in some way or other.
Businessdictionary.com sent me the definition for ‘sustainability’. I was pleased. This is one of the words that I rarely, if ever, understand and yet it comes up so often in editorial work. I suspect the conspirators who laugh at editorial staff promote the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘sustainability’ just to cause confusion. They come up in almost every topic, apart that is, from plain English. › Continue reading
It was a couple of years ago, I think, when I was first told not to use the term ‘brainstorm’. I was freelancing at some public sector organisation. I remember the deputy managing editor of the website telling me that the word ‘brainstorm’ is offensive to epileptics and I laughed uproariously – thinking this was some very witty joke – only to realise a moment later that no one else was laughing and that this bloke was being serious. › Continue reading
A few weeks ago I subscribed to the daily email from Businessdictionary.com. Every day, they send me a business term. As a struggling editor, I thought this might help me understand the words. Or should I say: “enable me to be better able to further my understanding of a whole raft of business words and phrases”? › Continue reading
I had a conversation with some people over the weekend who asked me to explain the difference between ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘horizon scanning’. I think they assumed – given that I’m an editor and everything – that I would understand these words. It was my own fault I suppose, for trying to turn the conversation round to editorial issues. › Continue reading
There’s no doubt about it, someone, somewhere is laughing at editorial staff. It is probably more than one person – probably a group of people working in league, a network of the well-connected, the rich and powerful. And their objective? › Continue reading
You would think that after at least ten or 15 years of the web people would know that brief is good and justified text is difficult to read online. I don’t want to get sued, but I have to say it’s just as well this training company doesn’t teach web writing or plain English. And why are they called Sold Out Trainers – a name that suggests a faint tang of sweaty feet, without actually meaning old running shoes at all? › Continue reading