Pesky possessives part 2

I didn't expect to find more to say about the possessive apostrophe in Mothers' Day But then I received an email from Grammar Girl, letting me know that I should write Mother's Day - it's singular possessive because the day is about families honouring their individual mothers, rather than being a plural possessive honouring of all mothersI'm still not completely convinced I looked up that source of trustworthy information, Wikipedia, and learned that Mother's Day was trademarked by Anna Jarvis...

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Signs intended to calm disgruntled customers

Is it possible for organisations to diffuse customer frustration using signs The ultimate message of the signs is: Please, don't get frustrated with us; this is the way our system works, and we're not going to change it for youI've come across two examples of these signs recently, and I felt that one was much more successful than the other In fact, the second only increased my frustrationHere's the one that I likedI know that my poorly-taken pic isn't easy to read It's a sign in a cafe and,...

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Pesky possessives

That day for mothers is fast approaching, and with it comes a possessive apostrophe question Should you wish your mother:Happy Mothers Day,Happy Mother's Day, orHappy Mothers' DayThe widespread consensus appears to be for Mother's Day That's what you'll find on cards, in ads, and on most of the signage in shops That makes it a day for motherMind you, last week I read about a restaurant chain that's offering a special Mother's Day breakfast, with a free kids banquet Maybe it doesn't make sense...

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Those way wood sheep

Sometimes I come across a writing error that makes me laugh out loudLast week I was reading a magazine article, and encountered this sentence  'On January 1, 2009, I shuffled along a country road, keeping an eye out for the usual hazards - farm dogs, way wood sheep'I wonder whether those wayward, self-willed, and unpredictable sheep had any idea what was ahead of them as they went the way of the woodsI hesitate to call this sort of mistake a typo, because there's an assumption with a...

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Seeing (but not reading) red

Churches and schools around Brisbane often use display signs to announce upcoming events or communicate words of wisdom Most remain outside the digital age, and  have a manual sign like the one shown above They all seem to have a set of black and red letters, and the signs usually incorporate a combination of black and red words within their messagesI often notice that key words are put up in red presumably to attract the attention of passers-by There's some logic in...

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Learning about document structure

Last week, Radio National's Life Matters program featured an interview with Cyril Peupion, author of 'Work Smarter: Live Better' Cyril was talking about people's inefficiencies at work - particularly with tasks like email Cyril noted that most people start their working lives with little idea about how to work efficiently It's not something that's taught either at school or university Given the 1,131 email messages currently in my In Box, with 282 of them being unread, maybe I need to pay some...

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Communicating through distraction

This morning I attended a fascinating breakfast seminar about distraction It was called 'Neuroscience of Distraction: Managing Distraction and Maintaining Focus', and was presented by Geoff Grahl from Australian Aeorspace The organiser was NeuroLeadership Solutions Geoff made several comments about distraction that resonated strongly for me For example:The more information we receive, the more likely we are to be distracted (this reminds me of Richard Wurman's book 'Information...

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Grabbing the attention of disinterested audiences

I was talking last week to our local school Principal about the difficulties that the school faces in communicating with parents The Principal often receives complaints from parents that they don't know what is happening - whether it's a special activity at the school, some type of social function, or a request for a form to be completed Parents often say that they would have been involved in an activity, if they had known it was happeningThe Principal is at a loss about what to do She works...

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Success with email

This month in The Writing Circle, we've been talking about email - about our email successes and failures, and about our likes and dislikesOne theme that came through very strongly is the speed with which emails are read and acted upon, and the problems this can create for both writers and readers We talked about the way that readers often don't read an entire email message Instead, they read the first paragraph or two, jump to some conclusion about what they're meant to do, act upon that, and...

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