11 May 2022
Editing cutbacks unfair to writers and readers
WITH Covid and staff shortages becoming the default excuse for poor service and faulty products it is sad to see the malaise spreading to the world of publishing. Errors there are so visible and so irritating to readers. For publishers they are so difficult and costly to correct. In specialist areas, editing shortfalls can bring… Continue Reading
17 May 2020
Some things academia will never learn
2 May 2020
Cure needed for pandemic’s verbal virus
The lexicographers are working overtime. New words are being coined, reviewed and added to dictionaries worldwide almost daily. It seems there’s nothing like disasters and pandemics to send the spin doctors into a frenzy of creativity as they try to find ways of cloaking and minimising what is actually happening. Plain speaking is avoided at… Continue Reading
16 April 2020
When a virus spreads, the dictionary swells
2 April 2020
It may be just a small point to you …
27 March 2020
Strewth, it’s Strine
You’ve gotta love what the Aussies can do to the English language. No time was wasted Down Under in adapting linguistically to the present crisis. A sample of the latest OzSpeak: “Me boss tested posi for the ’Rona so now I’m in iso. Popped down to Woollies for some sanny, but it’s been bloody magpie’d.” Continue Reading
Writing a blog used to be a simple, time-efficient task. That is, until WordPress decided to “improve” things. And, as so often happens when such decisions are made, things became intolerably worse. It used to be a case of type of the text, select a picture and insert it wherever appropriate. Simple. Now we have… Continue Reading
13 January 2018
Let’s be clear about this …
Now, I want to make myself perfectly clear … There must be no misunderstanding … Make no mistake about this … Blah, blah, blah. Such well-worn phrases. So overused. Every day, someone, somewhere is prefacing their remarks with such statements of clarity and precision. And they are usually people of great (self-)importance whose pronouncements are… Continue Reading
Another challenging editing job has reached its successful conclusion, and one of which I am especially proud. It was a long time in the overall process with much rejigging, rewriting and tightening of the text. Meticulous and determined research produced a voluminous amount of detailed information, much of it revealed here for the first time, that had… Continue Reading
End of content
End of content
Receive my ‘Read. Write. Run. Repeat.’ newsletter
Regular updates of my reviews and commentary direct to your inbox.
11 May 2022
Editing cutbacks unfair to writers and readers
WITH Covid and staff shortages becoming the default excuse for poor service and faulty products it is sad to see the malaise spreading to the world of publishing. Errors there are so visible and so irritating to readers. For publishers they are so difficult and costly to correct. In specialist areas, editing shortfalls can bring… Continue Reading