writtenexpressions

For our at-work Halloween celebration, I dressed up as a run-on sentence. It was a total of 191 words long (which, if you're curious, equaled eight yards of ribbon), with many independent clauses. Read Full Story

It's been a long stretch without a post...but I can't resist sharing this article (FYI, Michigan is Ohio State's big football rival, so the title of my post is for all the Buckeye fans out there): http://shine.yahoo.com/event/fallfashion/grammar-fail-on-old-navys-college-t-shirts-uh-oh-2531551/ On a side note, considering her choice of subject, I am going to choose to believe that the author is either British or chooses to write in the British style--because if not, she has a grammar fail in... Read Full Story

I'm a believer in first going after the low-hanging fruit, so when I started a recent document editing project, I didn't hesitate to make a first pass using Word's Spelling & Grammar function. My directive was simply to proof the document and make minor edits to copy based on changes provided by the client, so I clicked "ignore" on the plentiful suggestions to address usage of passive voice. I accepted changes to spelling errors and spacing issues, and studied the context for any identified... Read Full Story

I got an interesting email today: "Hey Amie, How's it going? Good I hope. I wanted to send over an email to you because I'm interested in sending over a few shots from a recent shoot I did for a romance & fiction book cover. I have about 15-20 photos from the shoot that have never been published and are very high quality. These photos are good for any book cover (except gay publications.) I am not looking to make any money off these, all I ask is that I get credit as the model in the book and... Read Full Story

Pretend I'm singing you Christmas carols. May your days be merry and bright! Read Full Story

We received a very memorable direct mail piece at work the other day. It was an oversized postcard from a proofreading service. One side of the mailer offered this explanation for a quote on the other side: "That was an actual typo caught by our proofreader before the job went to press. Our client was happy, and the Easter Bunny was ecstatic." And what, you're probably wondering, was the quote on the other side? Read Full Story

Q: Knock knock... A: Who's there? Q: To. A: To who? Q: I believe you mean "to whom." Read Full Story

I subscribe to Google Alerts for a couple of terms, one of which is "Written Expressions." That's how I discovered that I'm not the only Written Expressions, LLC around. Sadly for me, the other one is an e-book publishing site that specializes in erotic fiction. That may or may not explain why I received an email via my web site asking if I publish and market e-books. Nope, not me, I'm just a humble writer and editor. Read Full Story

"Language lovers who are not faint of heart won't want to miss this one." This is a quote from the book jacket of William Gay's Twilight . Apparently, I am not that kind of language lover (and no, I didn't get it confused with the Stephenie Meyer book of the same title). I picked up the novel based on the description offered in a recent edition of my local library's "Thrillers & Suspense" e-newsletter: "a resplendently dark Southern Gothic thriller," it gushed. Dark, yes. Southern, yes... Read Full Story

Last night, one of our local news programs reported on oil drilling in Point Hope, Alaska. Great attention was paid to the particulars of the story--the reporter balanced the pros and cons of drilling in water that is shallow (established safety measures) but ice-laden (aforementioned measures have not been proven in frozen waters). Locals were interviewed for their opinions. The economic and environmental impacts of drilling vs. not drilling were explored. Before you nominate the piece for... Read Full Story