GRAMMARLY RESEARCH: Good Grammar Will Get You The Job

The informality of email, texting, and tweeting has crept into company communication–embarrassing management and leaving bad impressions with clients. Kyle Wiens, of iFixit and Dozuki, said in a July 2012 post on the Harvard Business Review blog, “I have a ‘zero tolerance approach’ to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid.” He requires job applicants to pass a grammar test before hiring them because writing is his business.

Business Advice from CEOs You Should Consider

Do you like avocado enough to trade your house for it?

Some people face this choice every day, according to one prosperous CEO, Tim Gurner. In an interview with an Australian news show, the thirty-something millionaire blamed avocado toast and fancy coffee for this generation’s lack of funds.

“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” Gurner said.

Political Correction: How “PC” and “Reclaimed” Words Got Their Start

Any Google News search for “political correctness” will yield three general groups of results: pieces slamming one public figure or another for their lack of politically correct discourse, thinkpieces describing why the “PC police” are ruining free speech, and articles debating whether certain actions or speech patterns are “politically correct.”

While online pundits and thinkpiece authors spend a lot of energy debating whether terms or usages are PC, or condemning certain figures for their use or avoidance of PC language, there aren’t as many discussions about the history of politically correct language.

Speak Like a Scientist: 4 Words to Try Using Differently

Scientific writing is known for its precision and accuracy. Other forms of written and spoken communication, however, are often filled with confusing and ambiguous vocabulary. Here are four words we’ve poached from the scientific world that should be adopted in non-scientific communication.

Abstract In scientific writing, an abstract summarizes the key points of a presentation or paper.

Despite vs. In Spite Of

What’s the difference between despite and in spite of?

The easy answer: none. Despite and in spite of, despite what you may have heard, work identically in a sentence.

In other words, these two prepositions, in spite of what you may have heard, are basically identical.

In most cases, both mean “notwithstanding,” “even though,” or “regardless of.”

Despite their similarities, keep these things in mind to make sure your usage gives no cause for complaint.

7 Novels to Read for a Better Vocabulary

People read for a variety of reasons: entertainment, knowledge, understanding. There’s no better way to gain a larger vocabulary than by reading novels of all types and genres. Your high school teachers might have considered the classics the only true literature with educational value, but there are plenty of modern tales that can help you pick up new words to fling around at cocktail parties.

Present Perfect Continuous Tense

The present perfect continuous tense (also known as the present perfect progressive tense) shows that something started in the past and is continuing at the present time. The present perfect continuous is formed using the construction has/have been + the present participle (root + -ing).

I have been reading War and Peace for a month now.

In this sentence, using the present perfect continuous verb tense conveys that reading War and Peace is an activity that began sometime in the past and is not yet finished in the present (which is understandable in this case, given the length of Tolstoy’s weighty tome).