by English Wanted | Mar 22, 2021 | learning, presentation, speaking
You know how it is. It’s four o’clock on Friday, you’re on the last Zoom call of the day, and suddenly you’re woken from your daydream by Jones from Marketing: “Anyway, our AB readership, many of whom are ABs, have been thoroughly AB...
by English Wanted | Jan 16, 2020 | editing, presentation, speaking, voice, writing
The rapid advance in 21st-century technology affects (some would say, controls) every aspect of our lives, whether at home, school or work. And it’s now become so ingrained that we barely notice it. For example, by far the most visible of today’s...
by English Wanted | Mar 15, 2019 | presentation, speaking, writing
Business presentations have come a long way from the dry recitation of quarterly results, the predictable analysis of strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, and the proposed strategic plan ‘going forward’. These days it’s pretty much de rigeur to...
by English Wanted | Dec 3, 2018 | editing, learning, proofreading, speaking, writing
I am always impressed by non-native speakers who take real pains to learn the ins and outs of English, and who get the details right in print and in conversation. It’s all the more frustrating, then, to come across repeat errors that seem ingrained in the culture....
by English Wanted | Nov 22, 2018 | editing, proofreading, speaking, writing
The much-maligned apostrophe is actually an incredibly useful punctuation mark, allowing writers and editors to distinguish in print between plurals and possessive forms of nouns in sentences that may sound identical but mean very different things: My...
by English Wanted | Jul 4, 2018 | learning, speaking, voice
One of the most important lessons for English speakers is understanding how a shift of emphasis from one word to another can alter the meaning of a single sentence. In the following short story, words emphasized like this carry additional stress when spoken. The twins...
