… and how to put them right! Advice and opportunities for new, aspiring and upcoming journalists and writers of non-fiction
“The view is indescribable.” “There are no words.” “It’s hard to know what to say about …” All these are common expressions I’ve come across in the work of new writers. The first crops up in various forms in far too many travel articles. Writers: you have to find the words. The view is perfectly …
It is perfectly correct to say, “I was stood at the bus stop” — but only if someone picked you up physically, walked you to the bus stop, placed you down and stood you there. It is just fine to say, “We were sat at the table in the restaurant” — but only if the …
I don’t know why I’ve not written about reverse dictionaries before. The subject sprung to mind recently during the weekly Twitter #writingchat — which turned out to be about gifts for writers. Trust me, a reverse dictionary would make a great gift for any writer — but one should be on your own bookshelf too. …
Three for the ‘price’ of one, this week – but each one a tiddler. Whistles can be wetted, but appetites are only whetted. Your ‘whistle’ is your throat or voice. You ‘wet’ it to lubricate it – by taking a drink. It’s easy to see how ‘wetting’ an appetite might be assumed correct, misconstrued to …
I was in a grumpy mood to start with. Just the day before I’d been here to buy myself a comfy pair of slippers – just £7 from Primark, if you care for the detail – only to find that things didn’t feel quite right when I got home and started to wear them. My …
I’ll admit from the off that this is partly fuelled by an irrational pet hate that has been simmering for years, probably due to having a background in mathematics, but I can no longer keep a lid on my feelings for the abuse of the word ‘random’. Random is a terrific word, with a useful …
As regular followers will know, I’m all for branching out of your writing comfort zone and researching subjects you know little or nothing about. I probably best make this point in an early post – Mistake No. 12. Years and years ago – late nineties, I think – I wrote an article about electronic voice …
It is the anniversary of this blog. On 28th February 2010 I made this deposit on the blogosphere — and I refused to clean it up. Gratitude eternal to first-writer-to-comment Lorraine Mace for posting what she posted and not, say, ‘Sigh. Not another writing blog.’ So, ‘anniversary’. ‘The date on which something occurred in a …
I’m a reasonable man. Pay taxes. Smile at checkout lady. Drop coins in charity boxes. Hold door open for elderly people. Buy my rounds. Check, check, check, check, and check. So why, when I’m presented with the following, do I get the fleeting urge to jab out my eyeballs and stir fry them over a …
Repetition, tautology, pleonasm… whatever you want to call it, it’s basically saying something twice. Easily done. Very common. I do it. While scouting for examples I came across one which I use all the time, and which I’ll include in this post. See whether you can spot it. But first, some examples. And to demonstrate …
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