Friday fun with keister
In this episode of Mysteries of the Vernacular on TED-Ed, Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel try to trace the history of “keister.” Happy Friday!
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On being a writing “specialist”
[Updated September 7, 2012] What do you think makes a writing specialist professional want to tear out [thanks, Joyce] her hair? Subject-verb disagreement? No. Business reports with double-spaced text? No. Plagiarism? Not really. Students who write emails to pros in text-message style? OK, maybe a little. But the REAL frustration is the widespread incompetence of people who…
Happy holidays from Pros Write
I think this video is a terrific way to share the spirit of the holidays for those of us who believe in the power of words. Life has gotten in the way of blogging since Thanksgiving. I can’t apologize as it would be insincere. But I do promise more content soon!
Fun with Weird Al’s “Mission Statement”
MTV News says Weird Al sounds just like your boss. What? They’re talking about “Mission Statement,” the final video release this past week from the Mandatory Fun album. Weird Al Yankovic does not only make fun of the way the less powerful use language. This time his target is the language of the powerful. The song’s a parody of corporate jargon using…
Grammar nazis are alive and well
This Embarrasses You and I* One of my Bama colleagues sent me this link to a recent Wall Street Journal piece on grammar in the workplace. It’s generated 671 comments as I write this. Whew!
Enjoy some cod English today
This post has nothing to do with writing in the workplace. But I discovered the Inky Fool not long ago. An entertaining site for those who love language. You’ll find a post by Mark Forsyth on Cod English that includes the delightful video below, which is credited to an Italian entertainer named Adriano Celentano. I assume…
It’s about COMMUNICATION, stupid!
My first new post in a while. And I’m ranting — albeit somewhat quietly. This time I’m reacting to a newly published research article about assessing student writing within MOOCs. Balfour, the author, provides a review of two technologies for assessing writing when you have a huge student-to-teacher ratio: Automated Essay Scoring (AES) and Calibrated…
