worktalk

In the endless hustle to get work out the door (or onto the email server) faster, it is easy to short-change the proofreading process. When we do this, errors follow. Here are a few tips: If you add a few words to your message after you’ve finished your main proofreading, read it again before you […]

Email misjudgments can land people in jail. Just ask James A. Brown, ex-Merrill Lynch executive who wrote in an email that Enron had “promised” that Merrill would get their money back in a suspicious Enron deal involving barges off the coast of Nigeria. According to the Wall Street Journal (10/23/10) “a possible turning point came

Some common phrases are hard to tell apart. Here is a brief guide to a few common trouble-makers. Compared To vs. Compared With When making an analogy to something of an entirely different class, use compare to. He compared leading a company through recessionary times to steering an ocean liner through a storm. Compared to

Here are a few more pairs of commonly confused words. You will make fewer, lesser mistakes if you learn them well. Enormousness vs. Enormity Enormousness always refers to something that is a huge size. The enormousness of the elephant amazed him. The enormousness of the portions she served made it impossible for him to eat

In the word penultimate, the prefix pen means almost. Thus, penultimate means “almost ultimate,” specifically, next to last. Ultimate is the last; it often has the positive connotation of also being the best. “I was in the penultimate place in the race!” seems like an achievement unless you know that only two people were racing.