Lately a lot of folks have asked me questions that come down to a matter of Britishocity. Is it “gray” or “grey?” Is it “theatre” or “theater?” It’s okay if you’re confused about these things because, to be honest, you probably had little to do with dumping a bunch of Twinnings into Boston Harbor. Or is that Harbour?

We’ve whined about the differences between American and British English before, but spellings are a whole ‘nother animal. Or is that animaul? (Hint: it’s not.) If you care, here are some commonly mixed-up spellings that differ across the pond.
Read the rest of this entry

CT Michaels asked for a post on when to use affect and effect. So here it is, the shortest post of all time.

Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun. Read the rest of this entry

Unless you grew up being too cool for school, you’ll remember the Superman comics where Supes stumbles into Bizarro World, where everything is backwards. Or at least really weird.

Bizarro World can occur at any moment in real life too, and it’s an affliction that especially affects flacks and their clients. Here’s what happens when a flack enters Bizarro World: every single news story, every possible current event starts to look like an angle for you and your pitch. It doesn’t matter how illogical or tenuous; you see your assigned product everywhere, important to everything, and necessary for everybody.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to love your client. But pitching in Bizarro World isn’t about being passionate or creative. More often than not, it’s a sign of desperation. And it inevitably leads to failure because a flack who’s been Bizarroed isn’t capable of making informed decisions about angles, pitches, and appropriate targets. Read the rest of this entry

Last week, we here at the PRBC HQ received one of Cog’s many passive-aggressive e-mails about meeting our deadlines. We don’t really mind those e-mails; we usually ignore them while our deadlines go whooshing by. But this one was more ingeniously manipulative than most. “For those of you without posts in the queue,” it said, “(and you two know who you are) this is a reminder to get your posts in on Sunday as early as you can.”

Obviously our internal e-mail thread devolved into lots of people apologizing for being one of those two. Which was weird, because at least 10 people came forward to claim their place of shame in those two slots. Waitacottonpickin’ minute, I said, clearly we are all slackers, not just two of us! You really made us scared, Cog, that we were only one of two deadbeats in the group. Cog tried to defend himself by saying that “you two” referred to the two goody-two-shoes that DID finish their posts under the deadline. Read the rest of this entry

Just admit it. ADMIT IT. You don’t know when to use “that” and when to use “which” in a sentence.

Don’t cry! Nobody does. Seriously, no one can remember the rules for that/which because they are so. Freakin’. Difficult to remember when you’re in the middle of writing. But some of you actually care about your writing, and for you, I will break it down. The rest of you can go, I don’t know, eat cheez doodles and watch the local news.

Here’s what the Chicago Manual of Style (praise be His name) has to say about that/which: Read the rest of this entry

This post is a result of joking around on Teh Twitters with Josh Sternberg, who pointed out that social media, God bless it, has a tendency to get blown way, way out of proportion in terms of, well, everything. Of course there are some things that the deserve the hyperbole–you know, like the snowmaggedeon/snowpacolypse. But being the pragmatic, rational people we are, when we see people make overblown statements it just makes us wonder, “Hmm, what’s the real message behind this message?”

We all have that friend or colleague that will come in Monday morning, uber excited to tell you all about their weekend and you’re already cringing at the thought of it. It’s not that the story won’t be interesting. Perhaps they won a million dollars or got engaged. It doesn’t matter. Your friend can’t tell a story to save her life. In fact after she finishes the story, you’ll have aged about 20 or so years and forgotten what she was talking about in the first place. What does story telling have to do with PR? Well, everything. Telling a story, in my opinion, is very similar to pitching a story to media professionals. Read the rest of this entry

I just joined Foursquare last month at the urging of a friend who lives in Brooklyn. “This way I can see if you’re ever in the neighborhood, and we can hang out,” he said. I muttered something about calling him if I wanted to hang out, but whatever. I’m nothing if not curious, so a-Foursquaring I a-went.

I don’t know if you’ve ever played an RPG, one of those video games where you’re on a long, epic quest and there are lots of little side quests and mini-games that are not strictly necessary but they get you more points? Well, if you have then you will understand me when I say that Foursquare became instantly addicting. Points! POINTS. I must have the pooooooints!

You might think that’s silly and look down your nose at people who use Foursquare, but hey, you can go hang out with the people who refuse to say Twitter is anything but a waste of time. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, but don’t get all huffy about something that is, at worst, a harmless game.

Anyway. /wagging finger. Read the rest of this entry

Let’s cut to the chase: you don’t understand irony. You think you do, because you’re A) a hipster or B) a cynic. Don’t beat yourself up; it’s a common mistake. So let’s break down what’s ironic, what’s unfortunate, and what’s just plain hilarious.

Irony sounds really complicated when you try to research it on Wikipedia. There are lots of different kinds: verbal irony (when you say something that’s the opposite of what you really mean) and dramatic irony (when one person is not aware of something that everyone else is). Read the rest of this entry

Choosing who to follow on Twitter is like the tagline of any action movie sequel: this time, it’s personal.

Talking to fellow PRBC-ers made me realize all the different barometers people use to decide with whom they interact on Twitter. There is no right and wrong way, I guess, except spam-following. Which is totally doing it wrong. But discussing what makes someone followable or not is, I think, valuable because lots of us still aren’t sure what our personal rules should be. Read the rest of this entry