When spell-check can't help you: The Scripps National Spelling Bee publishes a consolidated list of 23,413 unique words. Here are a few, ahem, vexing examples. Okay, spellers -- on your mark, get set, go:

Fieriness	Frangipane
Intussuscept	Lanai
Pharisaic	Tussock
Ugli	Umbelliferous
Umpirage	Vallecula
Vaticinate	Vicennial
Viomycin	Wampumpeag
Wassailer	Weald
Whitsunday	Yautia
Zoonosis	Zygote

Steve Hall is the force behind Adrants, the opinionated, must-read blog for the advertising industry that dishes up a daily helping of news, trends, research and gossip, all seasoned with a heaping tablespoon of attitude. An industry veteran, Steve has a sharp eye for what works -- and what belly flops. We asked him for his thoughts on copywriting.

Steve Hall, the founder of the must-read advertising industry blog Adrants suggests these blogs about copywriting and ad creativity:

American Copywriter

AdLand

CoolzOr

Random Culture

Surveys are an old standby for PR companies on slow news days. But they stink of dubious statistics and questionable objectivity. No wonder the public is increasingly cynical.

You've seen the phenomenon already. Every Christmas and Easter, someone will publish a survey claiming that chocolate is good for you. The media lap it up -- it's a good story. But who benefits? Needless to say, the people behind these surveys are chocolate manufacturers and their PR firms.

We asked our Bad Language columnist Matthew Stibbe to recommend his favorite books on writing well. Check them out, plus read his reviews.

Writing to Deadline by Donald M. Murray (Matthew's review)

The Economist Style Guide (Matthew's review)

The Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto (Matthew's review)

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. ("The obvious choice," says Matthew. But timeless -- and small enough to fit in your pocket. His review.)

In the middle of my second term on the City Council of Iowa City, I got a call from the City Manager informing me about a police shooting the night before. Investigating an open door at a business in an area that had had dozens of burglaries in the previous months, a cop had pushed open the door and was suddenly confronted by a man with a small object in his hand. The cop, his own gun already drawn, reflexively fired at the man in front of him. That man was the owner. The object in his hand was a phone. The owner was dead in seconds, his chest ripped open by a single bullet.

Here's another post from Collision Detection, the ever-fascinating blog authored by science, technology and culture writer Clive Thompson. Clive, who writes for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Discover, among others, is a refreshingly original and independent thinker. I highly recommend his blog. This entry was posted on 6/25/06:

Think that email you're sending off to your coworker is pretty funny? According to a recent study (PDF link), the odds are that she'll find it only half as funny as you do.