Word Wise: Today's Read & Other Stuff

February 25, 2009

Today's Read & Other Stuff - Top 10 Lists

Read: Real Simple's March issue has a list of the top 10 "most overused expressions" from a new book called Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare. Nos. two and nine are my favorites. (If I was the headline writer at Real Simple, I would have hyphenated "most overused" since it's modifying "expressions," but alas, I'm not a headline writer at Real Simple.)

Harvard's business school posted its top "10 business words to ban" by David Silverman, author of Typo: The Last American Typesetter or How I Made and Lost 4 Million Dollars. I was heartened to see "and/or" on his list (though I would have moved it up from nine to three). It's one of my big pet peeves; I've written about it in a post called Slash and Burn.

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Why "Word Wise"?

When I started to e-mail out a weekly writing tip to my Chicago colleagues at Edelman in 2002, little did I know how quickly how many people outside my office would start to request it. But word spread, as word is wont to do, and in 2006 the e-mail evolved into this blog. The tips, which are about grammar, usage and style, have a dual purpose – to remind my colleagues in PR of the power of the written word and, more generally, to support and perpetuate clear, concise, creative, honest, lively, stylish, compelling writing everywhere. In 2009 I started to add commentary about and links to stories and other blog posts related to the media, marketing, writing and, sometimes, just interesting stuff. For some reason, I also started Twittering (at SantowDan).