writing

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The Most Overused Email Jargon
The Most
Overused
Email Jargon
Nov 16, 2025 9:30 AM CST

The Most Overused Email Jargon

A study of workplace emails reveals the worst inbox clichés

(Newser) - Most of us suspected that corporate email speak had ventured into cliche, but a new study shows just how repetitive the inbox has become, reports Quartz . Email technology services provider ZeroBounce reviewed a million business emails and found that workers everywhere reach for the same phrases again and again, which...

AI Is Stealing Our Em Dashes
AI Is Stealing Our Em Dashes
Oct 13, 2025 5:40 PM CDT

AI Is Stealing Our Em Dashes

The beloved piece of punctuation has become a tell-tale sign of AI

(Newser) - Grammar nerds, brace yourselves—AI isn't just stealing creative jobs, it's stealing em dashes. The Guardian 's James Shackell writes that an editor recently told him to get rid of all the em dashes from his writing because "people assume that means it's written by...

Writers Aren't Using Semicolons Anymore
Writers Aren't Using
Semicolons Anymore
in case you missed it
May 31, 2025 4:15 PM CDT

Writers Aren't Using Semicolons Anymore

A study shows a sharp decline in use of the widely misunderstood punctuation mark

(Newser) - Seeing a semicolon is becoming increasingly rare; it seems that writers—especially young ones—don't understand how to use them. Instances of the misunderstood piece of punctuation in English-language books has dropped by nearly half in the past two and a half decades from once every 205 words in...

Big Dig in Norway Turns Up 'Dream of All Runologists'

Archaeologists announce discovery of world's oldest runestone—perhaps as old as Jesus

(Newser) - Archaeologists say they've discovered the oldest known runestone—a stone inscribed with runic letters, which represent the oldest known alphabet in Scandinavia—perhaps as old as Jesus Christ. The University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History says it's "the oldest datable runestone" and that its inscription,...

Earliest Human Writing Allegedly Found in Ice Age Cave Art
'Person Off the Street'
Discovers Earliest
Human Writing
in case you missed it
Jan 8, 2023 11:20 AM CST

'Person Off the Street' Discovers Earliest Human Writing

Furniture conservator Ben Bacon helps identify what's touted as ice age proto-writing

(Newser) - Recording the reproductive cycles of animals in cave art likely helped hunter-gatherers in Europe survive during the last ice age some 20,000 years ago, according to researchers—a discovery made in part by "effectively a person off the street." Londoner Ben Bacon was intrigued by small dots,...

Remember 'Cat Person'? The Backstory Just Got Weird

Alexis Nowicki says Kristen Roupenian based short story on her

(Newser) - More than three years ago, at the peak of the #MeToo movement, a short story in the New Yorker went viral, earning Kristen Roupenian a book contract and movie deal . This week, however, a swerve: In an essay for Slate , Alexis Nowicki says the main female character in Roupenian's...

Here's a Way to Stave Off Dementia
Here's a Way to
Stave Off Dementia
new study
Nov 16, 2019 4:00 PM CST

Here's a Way to Stave Off Dementia

Illiterate people are nearly 3 times as likely to suffer from it

(Newser) - Good thing you're reading this—it might help keep dementia at bay. A new Columbia University study finds that illiterate people are nearly three times as likely to suffer from dementia, CNN reports. Scientists reached this conclusion after visiting 983 people over age 65 in the Washington Heights area...

'Billiard Rack' Genitals Win Bad Sex in Fiction Award

'Unsure as to how many testicles the character in question has'

(Newser) - Despite facing tough competition from novels featuring the phrases "mouth-machine" and "diabolical torso," Christopher Bollen took home the 2017 Bad Sex in Fiction award Thursday in London, courtesy of the Literary Review . NPR reports the passage that earned Bollen the prize comes from his novel The Destroyers....

Teacher Makes 4-Year-Old Stop Writing With 'Evil' Hand

Pre-K student Zayde in Oklahoma thinks his left hand is 'bad'

(Newser) - A teacher scolded a 4-year-old student in Oklahoma over writing with his "bad" left hand, and then sent the boy's mother literature detailing how left-handedness is associated with wickedness and the devil. Alisha Sands, who is left-handed herself, says son Zayde has always used his left hand to...

Why a New Yorker Writer Stole From ... Himself
Why a New Yorker Writer
Stole From ... Himself
OPINION
Jun 20, 2012 8:34 AM CDT

Why a New Yorker Writer Stole From ... Himself

Jonah Lehrer blog lifted full paragraphs from earlier pieces

(Newser) - A new staff writer at the New Yorker has already taken to plundering the work of others. Well, one other—himself. Three paragraphs in Jonah Lehrer's June 12 blog post appear in a Wall Street Journal piece he penned last year, media commentator Jim Romenesko revealed yesterday . Some of...

Alice Walker Blocks Israeli Edition of Color Purple

Author accuses Israel of persecuting Palestinians

(Newser) - Alice Walker is prohibiting an Israeli publisher from printing a new Hebrew-translated edition of her classic novel The Color People because, says Walker, "Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people." Walker has been a vocal critic of Israeli policies, reports the Los Angeles Times ...

Gadget of the Year? Pen and Paper

 Gadget of the Year? 
 Pen and Paper 
OPINION
Feb 7, 2012 2:42 PM CST

Gadget of the Year? Pen and Paper

Mark W. Smith: 'Cumbersome' smartphones can't beat old-fashioned writing

(Newser) - Smartphones and tablets have left everything from alarm clocks to GPS systems pretty much "obsolete"—but iPhones and BlackBerrys still haven't topped writing by hand, writes Mark Smith in the Detroit Free Press . He's no technophobe—in fact, he's a tech columnist. But when he...

This Year's Winner for Bad Sex Writing Is ...

David Guterson, for an Oedipus-like shower scene in 'Ed King'

(Newser) - Ron Charles of the Washington Post wins the prognosticator award among book critics. When he reviewed (and panned) David Guterson's novel Ed King, he took note of one part: "What follows are three pages that might very well win the Literary Review’s annual Bad Sex Award."...

Palin Emails' Big Reveal: Sarah Writes at 8th-Grade Level

...and that's pretty darn good: writing analysts

(Newser) - Sarah Palin writes like an eighth grader, and that's actually a compliment. Following Friday's massive release of hundreds of emails she wrote as governor, two writing analysts evaluated 60 randomly chosen messages that were at least one paragraph, and determined that Palin wrote them at a grade level...

Groupon: We Owe Our Success to Good Writing
Groupon: We Owe Our Success to Good Writing
'nyt' profile
May 29, 2011 5:18 PM CDT

Groupon: We Owe Our Success to Good Writing

Daily deals site differentiates itself through the 'Groupon Voice'

(Newser) - Pop Quiz: What’s the best way to describe a 4,700-pound chandelier? If you want to work at Groupon, your answer should be “More brilliant than a studious Christmas tree.” That’s an actual question the booming Internet company asks its prospective employees, reports the New York ...

High School English: A Waste of Time?
High School English:
A Waste of Time?
OPINION
May 15, 2011 3:14 PM CDT

High School English: A Waste of Time?

No one wants to teach grammar because it's not fun: Kim Brooks

(Newser) - Sometimes, while Kim Brooks is grading essays by her college composition students, she cries. "Not real tears, exactly—more a spontaneous, guttural sob, often loud and unpleasant enough to startle my husband or children," she writes in Salon . Why? Because many of these students "simply ... cannot write....

25 Commandments for Journalists

A former Guardian editor shares some advice

(Newser) - Some 15 years ago, a British writer drummed up a list of "commandments" for journalists. Tim Radford, former science, arts, and literature editor at the Guardian, pulled together 25 thoughts in response to a question he asked himself: "What is the most important thing to remember about writing...

Bad Sex Writing Award Goes to...

Sorry, Rowan Somerville: Sex and lepidopterists just don't mix

(Newser) - “Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.” If this less-than-amorous passage makes you cringe, you're not alone: Irish author Rowan Somerville has won this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for the passage in The Shape of Her....

Inside James Frey's Sweatshop-Like Novel Factory

Controversial author hires writers to churn out novels on the cheap

(Newser) - James Frey, infamous for angering Oprah with his "fake memoir" A Million Little Pieces, idolizes Vonnegut, Hemingway, and Henry Miller. He's the kind of writer who talks about wanting to "change the game" and "move the paradigm." Yet he's also the head of Full Fathom Five,...

Let's Rethink How We Teach English
 Let's Rethink How 
 We Teach English 
opinion
May 19, 2010 1:54 PM CDT

Let's Rethink How We Teach English

Kids can't write, and it's getting worse

(Newser) - Take it from a first-year college instructor: The writing skills of young adults are a joke. "They have either forgotten the rules of writing, or they never learned them in the first place," writes Kara Miller of Babson College. And while the media focuses on the need for...

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