Do you know where the seven-day week came from?
Your first inclination may be to assume that the seven-day week is based on some celestial phenomenon, like the year (loosely based on the earth’s orbital period) or the month (which was supposedly invented to mimic lunar cycles). Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.
The seven-day week, like the five-day workweek it encompasses, is completely man-made.
In the hierarchy of things that drive grammar sticklers mad, to and too are near the top. It’s very common to see them confused, abused, and misused, and not just in YouTube comments or on Reddit.
There’s no doubt that electronic communication is fast and convenient, but there’s one time of year when we seem to prefer a more conventional approach. Americans send 1.6 billion holiday cards by postal mail annually, proving that we still favor tradition when the days get shorter and the year draws to a close.
A Little History Sir Henry Cole of London commissioned the first Christmas card in 1843 by having an artist create an image for a holiday greeting.
Every employer has an ideal candidate in mind at the start of the hiring process. The “Why should we hire you?” question affords you the perfect opportunity to prove you are that candidate.
We all hate having to answer this question, but when you consider it from an employer’s perspective you can see why every interviewer asks it. You wouldn’t buy a new car without first doing your homework to ensure you’re getting the best value for your money.
How’s your email game? Are people happy to correspond with you, or are they leaving you hanging?
The quality of your email communication can significantly impact how you’re perceived by others (especially in business). And though we all do our best to write like a boss, grammatical errors still creep in.
Fortunately we can learn from our own (and others’) mistakes. So as the year wraps up, let’s take a moment to reflect on the fifteen most common email mistakes made by Grammarly users in 2017 and find out what we can all do to step up our email game in 2018.
Get out the pruning shears: a big part of good writing is good editing. And a surefire way to give your writing a confidence boost is to eliminate words that weigh down your writing and make you sound uncertain.
We call these weasel words. Like weasels, they’re not necessarily bad on their own. In fact, they’re kind of cute. But weasels are known for escaping situations (ever heard of someone “weaseling out” of something?).
Wouldn’t it be great if there were a magic word you could say in order to get people to agree with you? If, for example, a simple utterance of “abracadabra” could instantly convince your employer to see things your way, salary negotiations would be a whole lot easier.
Unfortunately, we live in the real world, and those magic words that guarantee instant success don’t quite exist — but the good news is, we’ve got the next best thing.
