Straplines tell your customer what you’re about and they capture the essence of your brand. So why do so many businesses seem to bang out the first thing that comes to mind?

Reading noun-heavy prose is like having to complete an obstacle course, in which every word you encounter slows you down and depletes you of the energy to read on.

When it comes to a successful business pitch, small, focused presentations are more powerful than 200-page tomes.

Writers seem to have suddenly developed a mistrust of the word ‘after’, preferring instead the more cumbersome ‘following’.

Surely a writer using the phrase 'dining experience' is merely trying to differentiate their restaurant from all the other, lesser restaurants out there. Hmm - let’s google that phrase and see.

As the Penguin Guide to Plain English notes: It would be good advice to any writer to say, "If you are thinking of using the word 'regarding', don't".

Have you noticed that every other thing we’re asked to part money for is an ‘experience’?

A brief guide to the slippery language of estate agents - lifted direct from a property magazine.

Ask any professional writer what the definition of 'professional writer' is and they'll likely tell you it's someone who doesn't very much like writing.

I flinch whenever I see evidence a fellow writer has surrendered all power to their designer. The biggest give-away? When words are over-designed in a misguided attempt to be witty or allusive.

One of the secrets of writing well is empathising with your reader - something this multinational household name clearly forgot with prose guaranteed to alienate rather than woo its intended audience.

Like Capricorns and rottweilers the apostrophe just takes a little bit of time to get to know. Take the time to understand him and you’ve got a friend for life.

The split infinitive causes more than its fair share of tooth gnashing and garment rending. But why? Let's take a calm, balanced look at the rule and its history.

Wouldn't your prose be that little bit more impactful, impressive, heck, downright important-sounding if you capitalised a few words?