Around the Word

Social style: Social media is a lot like the Wild West -- it's fast-paced, messy and people often shoot before they think. Nowhere is that more true than in the space-crunched Twittersphere, where even writers and journalistic sticklers break old-line grammar and spelling rules with the best of them. Is there room then in this new universe for a style guide? Blogger and writing pro Whitney Jones recently posted a great meditation on the subject that offers several helpful tips on how to socialize with grace and clarity. Though the AP did come out with its own list of rules for tweeting and status-updating, Jones recommends creating a clean, consistent style that matches the tone of your business or publication. How do you keep your social style consistent? (h/t Ragan)

Ghosts of heroes past: Jason Bourne and James Bond are protagonists that launched a thousand franchises -- books, movies, video games and now, more books. Though the authors who originally dreamed up these characters are deceased, a particular breed of ghostwriter, the "continuator," has taken up the literary torch to keep these characters alive. As Salon.com found, these ghosts use the characters and story of the previous author, but often write under their own name. To see some continuators at work, and to find out where these beloved action heroes are headed, look for new novels in the months ahead starring Bourne, Bond, Mike Hammer and Sherlock Holmes.

The latest word purge: As our readers know, we here at the BloGG always welcome a good kvetch session about bad writing. We've targeted vampire words and writing pet peeves, and now this week we're giving corporate copy some extra red pen attention, courtesy of corporate communications cop
Lindsey McCaffrey. Fed up with all the goofy buzzwords and clunky cliches that have infested business writing these days, she compiled a list of the ten most obnoxious terms that should be purged from corporate speak -- starting with grating jargon like "incentivize" and "impactful." What are your least favorite corporate cliches? (h/t Ragan)

iPaperback: Feeling guilty about cheating on your book collection with your mobile device? Thanks to a new line of iPhone cases from Speck, you can now read an e-book on a phone that at least looks like a real book. These cool vintage-looking covers feature titles that would warm any literate hipster's heart, like The Catcher in the Rye, A Clockwork Orange and The Great Gatsby. These covers seem like a fun way to pay homage to your favorite novel, though we probably wouldn't want to be the guy with a phone that looks like Lolita. (via the Wall Street Journal)