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

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

A lot of hardcore wordy people really hate internet-speak, but guys, I am not one of them! I’m all for language evolution mostly because there’s really no way to stop it, is there? Also, considering that Twitter only allows 140 characters, we now have an excuse besides laziness for our Internet acronyms. Chances are, you’ll run into someone online who’s moved beyond LOL or BRB and you’ll want to know what the heck they’re talking about. So here’s a handy guide for all y’all that weren’t rocking the BBS back in ‘94 when all these things got carved in stone. Read the rest of this entry

As PR professionals, we often deal with placing a client’s op-ed with what we hope will be a reputable, widely read publication or platform. However, as anyone who reads small-town newspapers for fun and schadenfreude knows, many op-eds are pretty much unreadable. One can only assume they’ve been printed because there wasn’t any news about angry, window-smashing McDonald’s customers that week.

While I was back in my hometown for winter break, I came across an op-ed that must be shared here with some (I hope) small suggestions for improvements so that you and your clients can see what makes a good op-ed and what makes a bad op-ed.
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As we enter a new decade, let’s all make a pact right here, right now. Let’s stop saying “two thousand” when we say the year.

Guys, it’s 2010. That’s “twenty ten.” We’ve gotten away with saying “two thousand blah blah” for far too long. It’s ridiculous. No one at the turn of the last century was saying, “Oh dear me, I cannot wait for nineteen thousand oh-one!” By rights, we should have been saying “twenty oh-five” or whatever, but because the new millennium was such a big deal, I let it slide.

But no longer. Read the rest of this entry

Are you sick of sounding silly when trying to use “whom” correctly? Of course you are. Here is how you figure out when to use “who” or “whom.”

Whom replaces a subject where the answer to the question could be either “him” or “her” or “them.” I remember it like this: whom ends in an M, just like him. Read the rest of this entry

Normally, any attempt to stifle what little creativity we have in this business makes my skin crawl. Really takes the cake. Gives me the pip. But in this instance, I have to put my foot down.

Guys. Stop using figures of speech in your business writing. If I had a nickel for every time someone mucked up some folksy sayings, well, I’d have a bird in hand, which I’m told is worth two in the flora.

Okay, I’ll put the stupid jokes on the back burner now. My point is, writing pitches and press releases is hard enough without figures of speech ruining everything. Two reasons: colloquialisms are easily misused, and easily misunderstood. Read the rest of this entry

Instead of my usual harsh judgment (my hammer of knowledge, if you will), this week I bring you a question. It’s an issue on which I’ve been waffling for some time.

Backstory: Remember a few weeks ago, when Starbucks released their new instant coffee? Well, now Nestle’s Taster’s Choice would like to remind you that they’ve been making instant coffee way before that young Turk ever came into the java-slinging world. Here in New York, and in several other cities, Nestle street teams have been handing out little envelopes filled with all sorts of Taster’s Choice instant coffee packets. Copy on these envelopes calls out the Starbucks instant brand as a lot of needless hype.
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One of our own, CTMichaels, is in the market for a new place. Like a lot of people, he’s going to be looking on Craigslist (CL) for the apartment and/or roommate of his dreams. Because Craigslist is the place where copy goes to die, I pleaded (nay, begged) CT to let me have a crack at his advertisement. Below is what he had in mind. Read the rest of this entry