This week I received an email reminding me about a luncheon on Monday, December 9. The writer pasted in the original invitation beneath his reminder. Minutes later I received an “oops” message, apologizing: the writer had meant Tuesday, December 9–not…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
Ricardo wrote to me today to tell me about a free English-Spanish online dictionary. It’s at the Word Magic website. As someone who is interested in learning Spanish, I was pleased to find out about this resource. I tested the…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
In all my writing classes, people tell me they want to be more concise. That’s a worthy goal, especially since our readers get slammed with so much they have to read on the job. If a message isn’t short, often…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
I attended a holiday event yesterday where everyone was given a preprinted nametag. Every tag included the person’s name and association (how they belonged). Every association was abbreviated. As a newcomer to the group, I had no idea what the…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
Jessica wrote to ask about the etiquette for sales letters in holiday greetings. She wanted to know whether sales letters should be included in holiday greetings, and if so, how long they should be. Here’s the answer: No sales messages…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
In a business writing class I taught recently, a participant shared a performance appraisal he had written about his work during the fourth quarter. He repeatedly included statements like “The deadline was met” instead of “I met the deadline,” and…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
Of all the punctuation errors I saw this year, the most prevalent offender was this one: Thanks Lynn.Happy holidays Lynn!Okay Lynn! Sorry to use my name so often, but the error involves direct address, that is, writers addressing the reader…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
Happy 2009! With the new year, it’s the time of making resolutions, commitments to change our behavior. I have made three that apply to my work as a business communicator. Here are my two simple resolutions: I resolve to spell…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
I just received an email that reminded me of the commonest error I have been seeing in content–not in punctuation or grammar, in content. The email begins this way: ***Correction***The original message to you had an error regarding the day…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
In a professional discussion board I am a part of, there has been talk lately about coming up with topics for blogs. Some people are not posting to their business blogs as often as they want to, because they can’t…
Source: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston
