October 23, 2023

Here I am with my Silver award celebrating at the 2023 Best Business Women Awards. I enjoyed meeting my fellow finalists, some seriously impressive businesswomen.

I’ve won several gongs in the 27 years I’ve run my copywriting business but this award ceremony surpassed them all. This is not just because I won a Silver award but because it gave well-deserved recognition to all those shortlisted.

Congratulations to the finalists I chatted to on the night including (deep breath) Charlie Avara of All Done Design Ltd, 

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September 4, 2023

We’re always told to write concisely. Great advice – but how? This can mean:

🎯Getting straight to the point instead of waffling

✂️ Structuring sentences well so there are no unnecessary words

🗑️Ditching ‘slacker’ words and phrases that don’t pull their weight

These are those lazy words or phrases that we often use without thinking but that don’t serve any useful purpose. With thanks to Grammarly,

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August 28, 2023

Even professional writers sometimes find it difficult to put words down on a blank page. It’s a phenomenon known as ‘the terror of the blank page’. Can you believe horror writer Stephen King has suffered from it. He said, “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” 

So, it is ‘a thing’ – but how do you overcome it? If writing blog posts is part of your job or you’re a business owner who needs to promote your business,

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August 22, 2023

Does this guy really have no regrets? We all know it’s important to avoid spelling mistakes in our business and personal lives but sometimes it’s easier said than done. The first step is being alert to the most commonly misspelt words and learning to spell them properly.

Commonly misspelt words
Apparent

Often misspelled as: apparant, apparrent, aparrent

Believe

Confusion over exceptions to the rule “I before E except after C” lead to mishaps like these:

beleive,

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August 21, 2023

With Winston the guard dog getting on a bit, copywriter Melanie Silver decided to hire a young Apprentice Security Officer to lighten the load. Barnaby, the new recruit, is already showing great promise by barking at the postie, all delivery drivers and random people who dare to drive or walk past the premises.

Here’s a photo of him at the entrance to the Words etc office giving his best scary face.

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March 7, 2022

Should you change the way you email to reflect troubled times or just carry on as normal?

There are two distinct schools of thought on this. Ignoring world events can make you sound tone-deaf but, equally, time is precious and others will appreciate your emails getting straight to the point.

With Brexit, COVID-19 lockdowns and now war in Ukraine, the last few years have been tough for businesses. If you want to acknowledge that,

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February 14, 2022

Have you been told a million times not to exaggerate? Chances are you’ve heard that expression many times, particularly as a child. But is it ever acceptable to use hyperbole – the technical term for wild exaggeration or deliberate overstatement – when writing?

We all use hyperbole from time to time. Like when we say on gaining a couple of pounds, “I’m as big as a house”. Or “I’d kill for some coffee right now”,

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February 7, 2022

Sub-team leader Francesca Kennedy Wallbank became the fifth candidate to be fired from BBC TV show The Apprentice this week. She made a glaring spelling mistake in the title of her team’s video game.

While quibbling over the game’s title – Artic Saviour or Artic Mission – none of the contestants noticed they’d confused a continent (the arctic) with shorthand for an articulated lorry (artic).

Lost credibility

The embarrassing spelling mistake led to derision on social media with one viewer tweeting,

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