The Last Post: Adventures with the Written Word

Happy Halloween 2025! You may be trick-or-treating this year, attending a costume party or hiding at home with the lights off. But are you familiar with these phobias, and their origins? Unusual phobias: James Hutchinson + AI coulrophobia , mass noun : an extreme fear of clowns. The word’s origins are uncertain, although the Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that the prefix coulro- may be related to k ō lobatheron ('stilt') in Greek. cyberphobia , noun : an extreme fear of computers or technology; cyber- is a back-formation from cybernetics . hexakosioihexekontahexapbobia , noun : the intense fear of the number 666  (known to Christians as ‘the number of the beast’, in reference to the Book of Revelation). However, the oldest surviving copy of the text actually gives the number as 616 . See The Other Number of the Beast: 616 . pantophobia , noun : a fear of everything, or generalised anxiety. From pantos (‘all’) in Greek, and dating back to the 19th century. Original...

Humans are a sociable species. We love to share ideas – so why do we often struggle to communicate through our writing? Author  Brenda Ueland  offered an  explanation: ‘ You have to hold your audience in writing to the very end -- much more than in talking, when people have to be polite and listen to you ’. Human communication. Designed by  Freepik When we speak to each other, we usually receive immediate non-verbal feedback (positive signs include regular eye contact or smiling). Written content relies solely on words – words that are based on assumptions about what readers want. However, these five communication strategies will make your writing engaging and sustain readers' attention throughout. 1. Choose a Strong Title A short – but relevant – title tells your audience what they can gain from your content. Identify keywords and include them to boost your online presence. Consider phrasing your title as a question – it’s quite possible that people are Googling...

AI is now part of our everyday lives, from our homes to our workplaces, and even our healthcare facilities. But how useful and reliable are AI outputs for writers and editors? To quote author Debbie Emmitt , why is ‘ …the value of human editors... at risk of getting lost in the noise ’? And how can human intelligence enhance the technology? Illustration: James Hutchinson + AI How Does AI Work? According to Google's AI Overview, ' AI works by using computer systems to simulate human-like cognitive functions '. According to IBM , however, that's rather misleading. The article What is an AI model?  states that ' ...an AI model is defined by its ability to autonomously make decisions or predictions, rather than simulate human intelligence ’. AI models make predictions based on algorithms. The large language models (LLMs) that generate text are trained on extremely large datasets, and they learn statistical patterns in order to predict the next word in a sentence. Inhere...

Search engines work by ‘crawling the web’: consulting databases and identifying terms specified by users. In its entry for search engine optimisation  (SEO), the Oxford Dictionaries website defines the term as ' The process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine '. This article explores the ways in which SEO is used to boost a company’s online presence, and offers guidance on the associated terminology. SEO in practice. Designed by Freepik Think about how we use search engines in our everyday lives. If we’re looking for gifts, we investigate products, reviews and prices, and then often purchase items online. If we’re hungry, we search for restaurants and make bookings. If our children ask fundamental questions before bedtime, we no longer have to invent plausible-sounding responses. We can find instant answers on our phones, tablets and cars. The web is the go-to to...