Language and letters
A writer’s guide to diacritics and special characters
Can’t tell a horn from a hoi or a caret from a circumflex? Here’s a beginner’s guide to those confusing hooks, strokes, and squiggles.
Are there words for the ideal healthy snack?
How would a consumer describe their ideal snack? And what words do healthy and unhealthy conjure up? Dutch research offers some clues.
Tips and science behind writing Christmas cracker jokes
The groan-inducing cracker joke is a festive staple. If it’s not bad, it’s not doing the job. Here’s how to write your own.
Playful family word games for all ages in lockdown
Stuck in lockdown? Kids bored? This varied collection of word games will fire their imaginations. Play at home or with friends online.
67 tools and resources to make your copywriting life easier
Here, on one page, are the online resources to resolve a million-and-one everyday commercial-writing problems. All suggestions welcome.
Does jargon have a place in copywriting?
We copywriters are hard-wired to bin jargon, but does that serve our audience? Guest blogger, Nigel Graber, raids the linguistic refuse sacks.
Coin your own dictionary definitions
Crowd-sourced dictionaries may be fun, but are they helpful to copywriters? Probably not.
Why be one of the crowd when you could be unique?
It’s easy to be vague and boastful – to be ‘one of’ the leading brands in your sector. But who wants to be ordinary when they could be magnificent?
It’s National Punctuation Day. Period.
And I’m celebrating with a string of homespun one-liners. Stuff like: « A group of exclamation marks ordered a round of drinks in a pub. “Whose shout is it?” asked the landlord. »
Not all letters are created equal
When crisp-eaters threw themselves into Walkers’ Spell & Go promotion, what kind of letter distribution were they expecting?
Copywriting head cases: title case and other headline styles
Title case … sentence case … all caps … there are plenty of ways to set your titles. Some are easier to read, and some look a shade more elegant. Here’s my guide to the best and the worst.
Collective nouns: singular or plural?
‘The band is in full swing’ or ‘the band are in full swing’? ‘The band is drinking coffee’ or ‘the band are drinking coffee’? I look at some of those tricky questions of plurality.
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