Words to Good Effect

Get off your butt

I’ve just read a pretty scary article in The Independent newspaper which says that people who spend many hours of the day seated (at their

Converting PDFs (for free) without losing the formatting — or your temper.

I took part in a conversation on Twitter recently about converting files from PDF to Word without losing the formatting. In this case, it was for

Dot-dot-dot (2): when to type an ellipsis

My post on Tuesday (26 October) was about how to type an ellipsis; this one goes into a wee bit more detail about when you

Dot-dot-dot (1): how to type an ellipsis

Here’s a quick tip that comes in handy for computer-typing in general and Twitter in particular (it saves you two characters). When you’re typing an

Internet gems

ne of the things I love about the Internet is the way it lets people share their enthusiasm for and knowledge of their own niche

A translation sin of omission

I wrote a couple of posts, back in August, about the Oxford comma (Oxford commas (1), The Oxford Comma dilemma: a solution? and Oxford commas

Planked away

My mother, who’s 85, was discharged from hospital last week. Her local pharmacy makes up a weekly blister pack dividing out her medication for each

The shaky maths of child benefit cuts

I’ve written in previous posts (Teaching the language love, Sharing the language love (1) and Sharing the language love (2) – Careers Days) about language

And sometimes words are just soooo interesting!

I’ve just been reading Khoi Vinh’s marvellous blog, Subtraction. In his post on “Ways I’m a Dork: Travel Edition” he describes the Grid-It Organizer from

Sometimes you just don’t need words…

…even words to good effect. With thanks to Bird Box Studio and Rough Cut. By Marian Dougan