March 2015
But you’re a lawyer …
We have a weird relationship with lawyers. If I mention my secret law degree, I generally get one of the following: Joke about prosecuting criminals / selling my soul / ambulance chasing. (These are all [...]
Word of the Day: Grandiloquent
Definition: Pompous or extravagant in language, style or manner—especially when trying to impress. When the Big Boss was around, Sebastian liked to walk the floors and loudly tell his co-workers to be more client-focussed, efficient, effective and [...]
Don’t separate a subject from its verb
See this simple sentence: The dog bit the cat. It's built of these basic bits: The dog [subject] bit [verb] the cat [object]. You would never dream of putting a comma after the subject and before the verb: The dog, bit the cat. [No. You wouldn't do this, would you?] But when the subject is a longer noun phrase, many people (I catch myself sometimes) will want to add a comma after the subject, just it feels like there should be a pause...
Word of the Day: Troglodyte
Definition: A cave dweller or a person who is considered to be old fashioned or out of date in their views. We accidentally hired a troglodyte. When we casually mentioned ‘Outlook’ and ‘send’ in a [...]
Word of the Day: Antejentacular
Definition: Occurring before breakfast. Marjorie's herbalist had lectured her about the calming properties of eating tomatoes and celery for breakfast. Dutifully, she was roasting some tomatoes and viewing some celery when a banging and shouting alerted [...]
Bad UX: mixed language content
My mother-in-law gave me a seed sprouter, because I mentioned that hers was a nice design. So now I (Minnie) have grown some fenugreek sprouts. Pretty tasty. The instructions, however, are rubbish. No-one seems to [...]
Language, law and science
I’ll be honest: I am not really a lawyer. Not the sort that’s ever wanted a practising certificate, anyway. Because, practising certificates are not exciting. What is really exciting is the idea of taking a [...]
Writing good error messages
To my ever-expanding frustration, and general astonishment (to which my wife expresses a weary kind of amazement: why are you so surprised, you know it does that...), things never seem to go entirely smoothly. (And [...]