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Culture

Culture

Hot off the press: our thoughts on what's happening in the world of brand language and business writing. Warning: may contain the occasional rant.

Culture

The world’s worst blog post

There’s this place in Amsterdam that prides itself on being the world’s worst hotel. It’s an interesting angle, but it sort of makes sense – you might as well be the best at something, even if it’s being the best at being the worst. (They’ve got some great writers too – the website’s a hoot.)

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

The ‘moist’ meme

At the beginning of our workshops, we often ask people to think of their favourite word. It gets them thinking about different aspects of language,

Writing, HR & internal comms

Culture

Let English change (YOLO, after all)

So the word of the year is omnishambles. Also on the shortlist were medal (as a verb), Mobot, eurogeddon and YOLO (you only live once).

Culture

I think, therefore I run

Last week, eight of us from The Writer ran a half marathon. We raised some money for Macmillan Cancer Support (you can still sponsor us). We all finished. We all got our medals.

Culture

The economy of expression

You’ve probably heard of the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China, the fast-growing economies leaving the traditional economic superpowers for dead. It’s a neat little acronym (which handily lends itself to all manner of punning headlines).

Consulting

Culture

The secret ingredient? Culture.

Recently I’ve been looking at the shared similarities of effective English and German business writing. Surprisingly, a lot of the basic principles are the same. But there’s one crucial difference: culture.

Writing, HR & internal comms

Culture

Seven different types of spam

We get thousands of comments on the blog, only a fraction of which are real (93 per cent are about Viagra). The rest are spam. And while a lot of them are nonsense, some of them are almost believable.

Culture

Can I quote you on that?

I’m a big fan of zenpencils.com. It’s a site by an Australian cartoonist who turns great quotes into great comics – for free. You can also submit your own quotes and the owner Gavin might illustrate them (you can buy his cartoons as prints as well).

Culture

Viddy your slovos*

Happy birthday, A Clockwork Orange. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Anthony Burgess’ classic novel. What’s interesting about this book isn’t what happens to the narrator Alex (a Mozart-loving, milk-drinking teen) and his cronies: it’s how the story is told.

Writing

Culture

The weather forecast (snore)

If you’re in Britain, take a look outside. Look up, up a bit more. There. Looking at that grey mass above you, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re in November. But no, it’s July.

Writing

Culture

Let’s not keep mum about jargon

A couple of weeks ago, Time magazine had on its cover a photo of a woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son. As a mum to a toddler, I’ve been watching the resulting media furore with interest.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #10

We've come to the end of our waxing lyrical blog series where each of us dug through our music collections to choose our favourite lyrics. To end it in style we're doing a bumper batch. So have a read, sing the lyrics if you're feeling crazy, and enjoy our final bunch of blog

Culture

Waxing lyrical #9

We're almost at the end of our favourite lyric blogs.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #8

Over the last week and a half, we've plastered the blog with our favourite lyrics. The Ivors are round the corner (17th May) and we thought it'd be a great idea to get everyone here at The Writer involved in writing a blog.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #7

Because The Ivors are happening next Thursday, we thought we'd share the lyrics that mean a lot to us. Today's lyrics get the nod for their brummie everyday-ness, potential sarcasm and intelligent historical referencing.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #6

Here are some lyrics that get us dancing, thinking and make the melancholy bearable.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #5

If you didn't know, all of us here at The Writer have been sharing our favourite lyrics over the past week. If you've not had a chance to catch up, you can backtrack in the blogs below.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #4

All this week we've been blogging about our favourite lyrics. So far we've had Elbow, The Velvet Underground and Kings of Leon. Here are some more for you.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #3

Because The Ivors are coming up, we thought we'd pick out our own favourite lyrics and say why. You'll probably notice a fair few bloggers you haven't come across before. That's because everyone here at The Writer's having a go.

Culture

Waxing lyrical #2

Here's the second dose of our favourite lyrics.