Have you noticed how many surveys there are, reported in the newspapers these days? The Daily Telegraph, on one day alone, carried stories about three – one about women saying they are “still happy to let men bring in the cash”, another claiming people blamed the weather for being unfit, and a third that people believe wearing glasses helps win a job. It’s no coincidence that the number of these types of stories is increasing. With more pages – both online and in print – to fill, the need for news has risen. At the same time, redundancies among journalists mean there are fewer wordsmiths to write copy. So it’s not surprising that publications have to fall back on ready-made stories which land in their lap; surveys, press releases and pieces of research all provide fodder for the hungry news machine. Are you taking advantage of this and helping to provide the news? If not, then why not? If you have a large client base or database you could use this to carry out a survey or piece of research. This has several benefits: 1. You keep in touch with you clients and contacts. 2. You may find out some genuinely useful information which can help to guide your business. 3. You can turn the results into a press release to submit to relevant publications. The only thing it takes is time, but the results are well worth it. For help with designing a survey and alerting the press to the results, visit www.wordworker.co.uk

Emma Thompson is spot on when she claims that young people using slang ound stupid. In an interview, the acclaimed actress said: “I went to give a talk at my old school and the girls were all doing their ‘likes’ and ‘innits?’ and ‘it ain’ts’, which drives me insane. I told them, ‘Just don’t do it. Because it makes you sound stupid and you’re not stupid’.” It does make them sound stupid – it also makes a potentially short sentence unnecessarily long when every other word is ‘like’, and it makes it difficult to follow the thread of what they are saying. More worryingly, will young people start writing in the same way? Imagine a world where all the extraneous words – ‘like’, ‘innit’, ‘I went’, ‘she went’ – were included. The state of our written language really would take a battering. Mind you, Ms Thompson is currently writing a new stage version of My Fair Lady – the musical about flower girl Eliza Doolittle who turns from cockney to lady. If Eliza can do it, maybe there’s hope yet for the ‘innit’ generation.

Emma Thompson is spot on when she claims that young people using slang ound stupid. In an interview, the acclaimed actress said: “I went to give a talk at my old school and the girls were all doing their ‘likes’ and ‘innits?’ and ‘it ain’ts’, which drives me insane. I told them, ‘Just don’t do it. Because it makes you sound stupid and you’re not stupid’.” It does make them sound stupid – it also makes a potentially short sentence unnecessarily long when every other word is ‘like’, and it makes it difficult to follow the thread of what they are saying. More worryingly, will young people start writing in the same way? Imagine a world where all the extraneous words – ‘like’, ‘innit’, ‘I went’, ‘she went’ – were included. The state of our written language really would take a battering. Mind you, Ms Thompson is currently writing a new stage version of My Fair Lady – the musical about flower girl Eliza Doolittle who turns from cockney to lady. If Eliza can do it, maybe there’s hope yet for the ‘innit’ generation.