Welcome to Gill’s blog

The blog page is where I will explore topics that are important to me as a copywriter – words, grammar, phrases, punctuation etc. I will also explore some of the reasons why I became a copywriter and why I feel professional writers can make a difference to marketing materials, especially for small businesses. Time is the one commodity we cannot manufacture, and for those who aren’t confident in their writing skills, or are not familiar with writing for the web specifically, hiring a writer can actually cost less than wasting hours trying to put pen to paper!

I notice things

I can’t help noticing when someone says off, when they mean from. Likewise, when they say due to, when they mean owing to. Or when people shorten the adverb, for example from beautifully to beautiful or from quickly to quick. I suppose my interest in language, both written and spoken, stems from my curiosity about people and the world around us.

My obsession with grammar goes back to a time when we learned grammar in school, not only in English, but in Latin, French and German as well! Although language is ever evolving and changing, I think that grammar still has a role to play, especially in corporate and marketing text, whether that is online or offline. I have read many websites during the last few years, and see spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, really complicated sentences and corporate-speak everywhere. I feel that there is nothing more off-putting to customers than trying to work out what companies are actually selling!

Variety is the spice of life!

On the other hand, some blog posts may be about my life and topics that interest me such as travel, reading, cooking and salsa (the dance, that is!) From time to time I may also recount incidents or experiences from real life that have made me laugh out loud. Or I may share when I have seen amusing signs outside shops such as ‘Ears pierced while you wait’, what are the alternatives, I wonder?

I hope these stories amuse you, too!