Such marks are symptoms of an increasing tendency to punctuate for rhetorical rather than grammatical effect. Instead of presenting syntactical and logical relationships, punctuation reproduces the patterns of speech.
How internet impacts the evolution of punctuation.
Sexy." You see it applied to non-human objects all the time, but especially electronics. And the thing is, those writing it almost never mean it. When a writer unleashes "sexy," more often than not what is meant is "desirable." And because sexual desire is something that almost all adults can understand, it's commonly applied. Easy!
A sexy article about common disease of tech journalism.
Suppose that instead of the list of men our bachelorette met above, things went differently. Without the serial comma, she might say: "The best available men are the two tall guys, George and Pete." There, you really don't know whether George and Pete are the tall guys, or whether there are two tall guys in addition to George and Pete. You literally don't know how many men you're talking about, and while that level of confusion as to elementary facts seems like something that might actually happen on The Bachelorette, it is unfortunate in other settings. If, on the other hand, you use the serial comma, then you would write that sentence only if you meant that George and Pete were the tall guys, and if you didn't, you'd say, "I met two tall guys, George, and Pete."
Punctuation nazi in defense of the Oxford comma. The advice seems rather misguided to me, though. In the quoted example ambiguity could be avoided with a help from the colon, for instance.
Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.
Very practical guide to writing about Africa. Should work as well for writing about most “exotic” and developing areas.
Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content.
Richard Dawkins reviews Intellectual Impostures. While the review is hilarious, the fact that this kind of discourse is widely used to create impression of intellectual superiority, is sad. Still remembering some of my college books, I developed an appreciation for showing respect for the reader by writing clearly. Rare skill disregarded by many academic authors.
5. 'Check' this box
If you're a British brand (or selling to Brits) stick with British English, especially around forms and transactions. I've seen significant evidence that this reassures e-commerce customers in the U.K. We 'tick' boxes or put crosses in them. And we don’t do 'shipping', we do 'delivery'.
Useful advice by a professional copywriter, with some British flavor added. I mean flavour.
How to make engineers write concisely with sentences? By combining journalism with the technical report format.
Short advice on writing well.
No wonder, if Elements is their grammar bible. It is typical for college graduates today to be unable to distinguish active from passive clauses. They often equate the grammatical notion of being passive with the semantic one of not specifying the agent of an action. (They think "a bus exploded" is passive because it doesn't say whether terrorists did it.)
Harsh critique of Strunk and White.
Although Ms. Hegemann has apologized for not being more open about her sources, she has also defended herself as the representative of a different generation, one that freely mixes and matches from the whirring flood of information across new and old media, to create something new. “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity,” said Ms. Hegemann in a statement released by her publisher after the scandal broke.
So now plagiarism is a generational thing and as an outdated concept doesn't apply to kids anymore. Brilliant.
