Word count 324
Community – Add after any group
Wrong – Brown haired
Wrong – Scientists
Right – Brown haired community
Right – Scientific community
Commas – separate items in a list, but not clauses
Clauses – There are none – college educated people don’t understand them.
Conjunctions – Use at the beginning of a sentence
Wrong – He was at home, but he went to town.
Right – He was at home. But he went to town.
Impact – Use wherever educated people would use affect or effect. Use everywhere.
Wrong – The injury had effects that affected him.
Right – Impact impact impact impact impact.
Reported or alleged – Never use. Use reportedly or allegedly, adverbs that might apply to something, but probably not.
Wrong – He was reported to have stolen a safe.
Right – He reportedly stole a safe.
Hopefully – Always use without specifying who is hoping. Never use hoped.
Wrong – He hoped she would win.
Right – Hopefully she would win.
Issue – Use in place of problem, error, mistake. Those words should never be used.
Wrong – He died of cancer.
Right – He died from a health issue.
Clichés – Use one until it has been used ten million times, for ten years or until it becomes popular again.
Wrong – I have decided that I am interested in Jen.
Wrong – Bad appearance
Right – I walked back Jen not being on my radar.
Right – Bad optics
Grammar rules or spelling don’t apply anywhere unless you want certain jobs, so write as though you were texting in any other situation.
Wrong birthday card – Happy birthday on your 80th Grandmother
Right birthday card – Grammar, happy bday ur 80, lol
Nouns and verbs – Change nouns to verbs and verbs to nouns
Wrong – He spends his weekdays requesting donations from businesses, and he hopes that they will send him big donations.
Right – He weekdays sending big asks to the business community. And hopefully they will gift him big donations.
A shorter version appeared in Short Humour. It appears in Writer’s egg.
Doug Hawley 