Words etc

23/10/2023

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, Sophie Ryan of Interactive VA, Dara Stringham of Dara Ford, Silvia Del Corso of Pinkseo Limited, Catriona Bateman of Little Folk Nursery Rhymes, Jona Hysa of Time4PA – Virtual Assistant Services, Lucienne 🐅 Shakir of Lucienne Coaching, and the lovely Irene Chew and Vanessa Norcliffe representing Ibi Eso of Bridgehouse Company Secretaries.

Darrin Salt of The Technologies Group, instantly became my favourite judge when he and his partner turned up at the table armed with bottles of celebratory fizz! 🍾🍾🍾

Kudos to the inspirational Debbie Gilbert and her team for staging such an enjoyable and professional event. You certainly achieved your aim of making all of us – especially this silver award winner – feel very special.

Here’s to the 2024 awards!

03/07/2023

Thrilled to hear that I’ve been shortlisted as a finalist in the Marketing & PR category of the 2023.

Thanks to my lovely clients who gave me wonderful endorsements, which I’m sure helped get me this far. As I always say to clients, “Being shortlisted is an achievement in itself”.

Looking forward to celebrating success with my fellow finalists at the gala dinner on 22 September!

25/01/2022

I was thrilled to get a great testimonial last week from a client I've been working with for the past year. I love working with clients as an extension of their in-house marketing team as I gain a deeper understanding of their business and the challenges they face and can build strong working relationships with members of their team. This means I can do a better job for them.

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE GETTING IT RIGHT? 💯 One of the things that gives me greatest satisfaction is getting repeat business from my clients because then I know I’m doing a good job for them. I work best when I can build long-term relationships with clients because that way I really get t...

03/08/2021

It’s the time of year when our thoughts naturally turn to holidays. So today I focus on the most gleeful communication of them all – the out-of-office autoreply.

Even if the pandemic means many of us are restricted to a staycation, it’s the time of year when our thoughts naturally turn to holidays. So today I focus on the most gleeful communication of them all – the out-of-office autoreply.

03/08/2021

WHAT TO SAY IN THE MOST JOYFUL COMMUNICATION YOU'LL EVER WRITE

Even if the pandemic means many of us are restricted to a staycation, it’s the time of year when our thoughts naturally turn to holidays. So today I focus on the most gleeful communication of them all – the out-of-office autoreply.

14/07/2021

DO YOU USE UNNECESSARY WORDS IN YOUR WRITING?

A typically hysterical interview with comedian Michael McIntyre on The Jonathan Ross Show prompted me to write about tautology – the use of utterly superfluous words. Michael was highlighting, in his own inimitable style, how Americans feel the need to simplify perfectly adequate English words to the extreme. (Watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCo0hSFAWOc)

To make his point Michael cited examples including sidewalk (pavement), trash can (bin) and his personal favourite, horseback riding (horse-riding). It was extremely funny but he makes a serious point: many of us (and I include myself here) use unnecessary words in everyday life. Consider these common culprits:

- Free gift (surely if it’s not free, it’s not a gift)
- File away
- Added bonus
- Grateful thanks
- Raze to the ground (that’s exactly what ‘raze’ means)
- Refer or revert back
- Set a new world record
- Rise up
- Unexpected surprise (if it wasn’t unexpected, it wouldn’t be a surprise)

And these are just a few examples that spring to mind.

The use of redundant words even has a name - ‘pleonasm’. I differ from grammar purists in occasionally breaking my own rule for added emphasis (see what I did there) but do it too often or without thinking and it can make your writing woolly.

If you’d like help sharpening up your company’s written communications, please get in touch! Call 01923 212048 or email [email protected]

22/04/2021

With thanks to Copyblogger, check out these seven tips to improve your writing.

24/03/2021

Last week, I had the honour of guesting on Jon Whycer's 'Standing Out' podcast. Under Jon’s expert questioning, I revealed my journey to becoming a copywriter and shared writing tips picked up over the past 25 years or so.

So, if you’d like to know the difference between content writing and copywriting, which grammar rules you can safely ignore and THE most important thing to bear in mind when writing anything, tune in!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1112111/8197312

08/03/2021

Headlines are essential to catch the reader's eye. But once you've got their attention, how do you encourage them to keep reading?

You need a hook!

Headlines are vital to catch the reader's eye. But once you’ve got their attention, how do you get them to read on? The answer: create a hook.

04/01/2021

Fascinating analysis by writing app Grammarly shows the impact of the pandemic on the way we communicated last year. Well worth a read.

COVID-19 has affected virtually every aspect of our lives. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that it also influenced how we communicate with each other.

08/12/2020

How confident are you using apostrophes? If you've never understood when and how to use them, here's my SIMPLE explanation: https://bit.ly/33TrGOM

26/11/2020

QUARANTINE CROWNED 2020 WORD OF THE YEAR

In news just in, ‘Quarantine’ has defeated 'lockdown' and 'pandemic' to be crowned Word of the Year 2020 🥊 after data showed it to be one of the most highly searched for on the Cambridge Dictionary.

Quarantine was the only word to rank in the top five in terms of both search spikes (28,545) and overall views (more than 183,000 by early November). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the largest spike in searches was seen the week of 18-24 March, when many countries around the world went into lockdown as a result of COVID-19.

The Cambridge Dictionary editors have also tracked how people are using quarantine, and have discovered a new meaning emerging: a period of time in which people are not allowed to leave their homes or travel freely, so that they do not catch or spread a disease.

This marks a shift from the existing meanings that relate to containing a person or animal suspected of being contagious: a specific period of time in which a person or animal that has a disease, or may have one, must stay or be kept away from others in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

As if we needed further evidence of the impact COVID-19 has had on our lives, the two runners-up on the shortlist for Word of the Year were ‘lockdown’ and ‘pandemic’.

❓ What’s been your most-used word this year? ❓