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Phil Jamieson

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Howls for Vowels

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Dec 4, 2024 9:01:00 AM

Who will win today? Anyone? Everyone! Individuals? Organizations? Even Unions?

The vowels are A, E, I, O, and U. If you thought Y was a vowel, you’re only half right since Y is a semi-vowel.

Here’s an interesting thought, one that probably had not occurred to you earlier today, this week, or even this lifetime: Vowels are created by the free passage of breath through the larynx and mouth. When the mouth is obstructed during speech production—most often by the tongue or teeth—the resulting sound is a consonant. Try that right now.

Want more about vowels? Here are 10 of the 4,000-plus English words containing all the vowels. If you get them all, you’ll get an A. If you get none, you’ll get that consonant that comes after E.

 

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Topics: word quiz, vocabulary quiz

Difficult to Understate?

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Aug 29, 2024 10:30:00 AM

I just received an email from a prominent law firm advertising an upcoming seminar on the latest promises of a new generation of computing. Most business people would recognize the firm’s name, but of course we’ll not mention it here for fear of a gigantic lawsuit, or at least a C&D letter. (They’re LAWYERS, after all!)

The first paragraph briefly described the great power and many advantages coming with next-gen computing and ended with this sentence:

"It's impossible to understate the power this new form of computing will demonstrate." (Italics are mine.)

See the flub? It’s akin to that common mistake one hears so often: “I could care less.” I am pretty sure the article was AI-generated, for it had a plethora of repeated concepts, a lot of strung out phrasing, and plenty of word salad to get the count up to some stated goal.

This law firm doesn’t look so great when they blithely let grammatical mistakes like this one go unpunished. They meant “overstate,” of course, as they meant to say something like “You just can’t find the words to express how great the impacts of such power will be. Even if you guessed a billion times faster and a trillion times cheaper, you’d still be low."

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Topics: artificial intelligence, AI

Stupid Wordle Words

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Aug 15, 2024 9:00:00 AM

Lots of us are playing Wordle every day. If you’re not playing Wordle, you should be. After all, Wordle can save you! Just ask the 80-year-old woman in Chicago who was saved from a naked stranger who insisted she take a bath with him! Yuk! Anyway, if you are playing, check out our list of stupid Wordle words (5 letters, no plurals, no proper nouns) and see if you recognize any. You never know when these are going to show up.

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Topics: vocabulary, word quiz

"We the People" Love Word Quizzes

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Jul 3, 2024 8:00:00 AM

It’s a good week to celebrate our independence – make that Independence with a capital I. The Declaration of Independence is dated July 4, 1776, but was signed in August of that year by brave patriots who risked their property, possessions and their very lives to start a new nation. Our words today deal with freedom, independence (or lack of it) and rights. Never forget that freedom was and is not free. Long live America!

Select your answer below for each question. When done, you'll see your score and the correct answers.

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Topics: word quiz, vocabulary quiz

8 Writing Errors That Can Ruin Your Law Firm’s Credibility

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Mar 28, 2024 8:01:00 AM

The legal field rests upon evidence and precedence. We respect that, because so do we.

We’ve proofread and copyedited (easily) tens of thousands of legal documents in the past 20+ years. Often dozens of legal and legal marketing documents in a single day:

Website copy, newsletters, press releases, pleadings, motions, briefs, blog posts, practice descriptions, emails, event/webinar invitations, internal communications, special reports, pitch decks/collateral, slide presentations, correspondence, miscellaneous court filings, RFP responses, and more.

The unfortunate verdict is in: Legal marketing teams and lawyers/attorneys, even at (especially at?) the largest of firms, commit a lot of writing errors.

The sheer volume of daily documentation flowing through the typical law firm is staggering. Combine that volume with the perpetual race against the clock that defines many law firm environments and it’s easy to see why writing quality and proofreading bandwidth suffer.

Our most recent survey of completed legal proofreading jobs revealed an average of 118 errors per document, ranging from 39 to 191 errors. (Have mercy, Your Honor.)

While typos aren’t capital offenses, they are an easy but preventable way to ruin your credibility, embarrass your firm, drive away prospective clients, annoy a judge, and damage or even destroy a case (here are nine such examples).

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Topics: legal proofreading, proofreading for legal documents

Can You Ace This Spelling Quiz? Part 3

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Feb 1, 2024 8:00:00 AM

(Most People Can’t)

This is part 3 of a spelling quiz we recently posed to a group of highly educated legal marketing and business development professionals at an annual conference. They were sure they could ace our questions—after all, communication is the foundation of their businesses.

Guess what?

Many of them made mistakes! In fact, many of them made the same mistakes! They were astounded.

So here’s our challenge: See if you can do better. Then tell us about it in the comments.

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Topics: word quiz, vocabulary quiz

Wide-Ranging Events

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Nov 2, 2023 8:00:00 AM

On this day in 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected 39th president of the United States. In 1947, Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose flew for the first … and last … time. In 1929, Richard Taylor, Nobel Prize-winning physicist who proved the existence of quarks, was born. In 1889, North Dakota was made the 39th state, and South Dakota was made the 40th state. And in 1570, a tidal wave in the North Sea destroyed the sea walls from Holland to Jutland. More than 1,000 people were killed. Do you have what it takes to rise to fame and fortune on your intellect alone? Or are you strictly a flatlander unable to rise to any level of importance in this age of ineloquence? Take our test and find out!

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Topics: vocabulary test, vocabulary quiz

13 Uncommon Punctuation Marks and How to Use Them

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Aug 17, 2023 10:44:53 AM

Punctuation marks are teeny, but they should never be underestimated. They inform the literal and implied meaning, cadence, and emotion of every word we write (and read). That said, sometimes the average exclamation mark or serious serial comma or even an enthusiastic em dash doesn’t cut it. You need something with more flair and precision — an uncommon punctuation mark.

This list is the grammatical equivalent of a chef’s special. The VIP lounge. The decorative embellishments of an A-grade interior designer. Prepare to surprise and impress people with 13 uncommon punctuation marks and how to use them. And fair warning: Your writing may never be the same.

 

1. Acclamation Point
 

The acclamation point is used to demonstrate an enthusiastic sense of goodwill or welcome and is placed at the end of a sentence. You could use it when greeting your mother-in-law for a monthlong stay (assuming you love her very much).

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Can You Ace This Spelling Quiz?

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Jun 22, 2023 8:00:00 AM

(Most People Can't)

 

We recently posed this spelling quiz to a group of highly educated legal marketing and business development professionals at an annual conference. They were sure they could ace our questions—communication is the foundation of their businesses.

The surprising results?

Many of them made mistakes! In fact, many of them made the same mistakes! They were flabbergasted.

Think you can do better? Have at it (no help from Google or Chat GPT beforehand, though)!

 

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Topics: word quiz, vocabulary quiz

Can You Come Out Tonight?

Posted by Phil Jamieson   Sep 15, 2021 10:30:00 AM

On this day in 1962, the Four Seasons earned their first No. 1 hit with “Sherry.” Frankie Valli had been hard at work trying to become a star for the better part of a decade before the Four Seasons achieved their breakthrough. They had come together as a group in several stages over the previous four years, changing their name in 1961 from the Four Lovers after failing an audition at a New Jersey bowling alley called The Four Seasons. It was keyboard player Bob Gaudio who wrote the song that would launch the group’s career.

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Topics: vocabulary test, word quiz, vocabulary quiz

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