You don’t know what you don’t know.
Content is often the last thing people think of when building a website, but it’s the part you should think about most. After all, it’s what people come to a website for. (That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?)
People say web writing is different, but how?
This page explains some of reasons why content people can get a little worked up at times.
(Oh, and if you’re a word geek, check out our Word of the Day page for inspiration for your next insult!)
Australian English—where the bloody hell did it come from?
How do we explain the general homogeneity of the Australian accent (almost no variation in a country 30 times the size of Britain)? What is Australian English, anyway? (Is it more than just the accent?) This post explores these questions, and influences on Australian English—from colonial times to present day.
Syllepsis: 2 examples from popular music
All I do is keep the beat and bad company—Mark Knopfler This is an a example of syllepsis, a fun rhetorical device...
Anchoring bias
None of us are safe from the anchoring bias. The way we reason is coloured by our experiences, our parents' experiences, where we live, what we do. And little behavioural shortcuts are hardwired into our [...]
Hypercorrection: hyphenating ‘ly’-adverb–adjective combinations
A noun is a thing, like an apple or regret. If we talk about a red apple or a great regret, both ‘red’ and ‘great’ are adjectives. So what’s an adverb?
An accessibility issue often overlooked: Grade level readability
There’s this thing called the WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. They set out all the good things you need to do to make your content accessible for people with disability, people including those with vision [...]
Contractions you’d never expand, old English, and other relics
English is full of relics, throwbacks to old words or expressions, that often only remain in a single contemporary term or expression. Like 'teller' in 'bank teller'. Tell is an old word meaning 'to count', and we don't see it anywhere else...
Phonological processes—First language development
Talking is tricky. If you've ever fallen over your tongue trying to pronounce a new term, or just tried to speak too quickly, you'll know this. Because the act of speaking happens in near real [...]
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...