Sometimes when you read the headlines in the news, you probably cannot help but suppress a giggle. Consider these:“Tiger’s wife gives birth to a daughter” – The Associated Press“Tiger’s new cub is a baby girl” – Independent Online The problem with the above is that they assume their audience is familiar with Tiger Woods (and… Read More »
An English professor wrote the words, “Woman without her man is nothing” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly. The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.” The women wrote: “Woman! Without her, man is nothing.” Related posts:How men and women shower differentlyDangerous womenWhy I love womenMen are from RAM;… Read More »
Sometimes when we’re writing, we become so engrossed with statistical accuracy that we fail to take into consideration how a reader would interpret a poorly constructed sentence. For example, in a recent FORTUNE article on India’s pollution problem (“River of Sorrow“, June 11 issue), the author wrote: “The problem is that 11 of the city’s… Read More »
As if getting insulted by Sarah Silverman on MTV Movie Awards wasn’t bad enough, Paris Hilton also had the “pleasure” of being the subject matter of a totally random art competition for children. Called the Paris Hilton Obituary Writing Contest, it solicited 300-word (or less) entries from three age groups – 13 to 14, 15… Read More »
From Bangkok Post:“The as-yet unnamed planet is only about one-and-a-half times the size of Earth and five times more massive, a team of European astronomers announced at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany.” If the planet is only about one-and-a-half times the size of Earth, how on Earth can it be five times more… Read More »
Freelance copywriting job for Sony several years back (2003 to be precise): Ad in January 22, 2007 issue of FORTUNE magazine: Coincidence?