Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips

Tip #486: How language grows:

These FREE weekly business writing tips
will help you improve your business writing.

Tip #486:

This is how language grows: Someone complained that "mad at" sounded wrong. He said you need to say "mad with you," not "mad at you." For several hundred years the English words "mad" and "madness" were tied to concepts of insanity. King Lear (Shakespeare) was mad; the Hatter (Alice In Wonderland) was mad; and half of Ibsen's characters were just a little nuts. The mad/angry sense developed in the 19th century. The same thing happened to the word "sore." This word meant physical pain and now means "annoyed at." Language grows from not only forging new words but also by finding new meanings for old ones.

(adapted from The Writer's Art)

Weekly Exercise:

We receive over 200 emails per day.  We encourage you to answer our weekly tips, but please, if you are answering this weekly tip exercise,  identify the tip number in the subject line of your email.

This week’s quiz:

Which phrases are correct:

1. The mushrooming talent of a young actress

2. The burgeoning talent of a young actress

3. The burgeoning population of China

4. The mushrooming population of China

Quote of the week:

"Smart people speak from experience; smarter people, from experience, don't speak." (Unknown)

Comments:

Sally commented about tip #485 concerning the question about the sentence: "Everyone has been written."

Everyone has been written will never make sense as it is incomplete - everyone had been written is also not correct as you cannot avoid what has been written about and "everyone has been writing" is such a different thing that they cannot really be compared.  I agree that the addition of 'to' makes it make sense, but it seems as if the person with the original question is miles away, or the question is not being answered.

Not my clearest day - sorry, but I'm not sure that the person is being answered for the question they're asking and further, they should have been asking that question in the first place. Good luck if any of that makes sense.

Here's another pun sent in by Gary Stofan:

Whenever Gandhi walked, in support of his cause, it was said that he was always trying to log a rhythm.

To see the answers to this week's quiz,

Subscribe to writing-tips

 to receive the FREE Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips weekly email.

To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review,  copy the questions,  paste  them into an email, answer them,  and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.

 

See this week's tip

You can always see the FREE Weekly Business Writing Tip.
But you must be on my mailing list to receive the answers! 

Please share these FREE tips with your friends.

For those who are first-timers, sign up by sending me an email.
 
Google Custom Search

These business writing tips brought to you by:
Bull's Eye Business Writing Bull's Eye Business Writing logo
10 Easy Guides for Getting to Your Writing Target
By Gloria Pincu, M.A. , President of Basic Learning Systems, Inc.
return to first page
Please feel free to share these tips with a friend
To find out more about us:

Order our books, CD-ROM and online courses today through our secure online store.

 
Here are some books on business writing that I recommend.

Bull's Eye Business Writing is also available from Amazon.com.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, author, Lynne Truss The Everything Resume Book by Steven Graber
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , by William Knowlton Zinsser  The Gregg Reference Manual, by William A. Sabin 
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, White, E. B. White  How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing, by Robert Gunning, Richard A. Kallan (Contributor) 

More books on business writing and other business subjects  (available from Amazon.com). 

Contact Gloria Pincu at Basic Learning Systems, Inc.

Bull's Eye Business Writing banner