In any good newspaper or magazine, many stories are competing to appear in a limited amount of space. Unsurprisingly, therefore, editors love stories that can be expressed with clarity and concision. Editors hate wasted words. (more…)

A few years ago, Hugh Grant starred in a film called Two Weeks Notice. (In a daring career gamble for Grant, it was a romantic comedy.) (more…)

There are many reasons why people stand in supermarket queues and tut away to themselves. Quite why shops choose to close almost every till at lunchtime, when business people head off en masse to buy their sandwiches, is one of life’s great mysteries (like ‘Does God exist?’, ‘Why do men have nipples?’ and ‘What’s the point of Sarah Ferguson?’). (more…)

The misuse of language literally makes me tear my hair out in frustration. Firstly, clichés like ‘tearing one’s hair out’ are not colourful and inventive; they are bland and lazy. (All clichés, of course, should be avoided like the plague. Ha, ha.) Secondly, the casual insertion of the word ‘literally’ into descriptions that are clearly not literal is a bad habit that persists even among professional writers and journalists. ‘Literally’ should only ever be used to describe events that physically happened, are happening or could happen. (more…)

We’ve noticed some confusion in the media lately about the difference between “practice” and “practise”.

Conventions in American English differ but with good old-fashioned English English – the original and best! – the important thing to remember is that “practice” is the noun and “practise” is the verb. (more…)