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Worried that your writing’s too verbose to digest? Not much deters readers (especially potential customers) more than dense, overlong prose. So here’s a handy tip. If you write in Microsoft Word, the program will automatically tell you just how ‘readable’ your text is.

The system it uses is based on the teaching of Austrian-born writing expert Dr Ruddolph Flesch. It calculates your ‘score’ based on your number of characters per word, words per sentence, and sentences per paragraph.

An ‘ease of readability’ score of 60 per cent or more counts as plain English – anything less and you might want to look again at the text to see how it can be simplified.

To vet your text, select Proofing under the Word Options tag, check the Show Readability Statistics box, and you’re away.

Apparently, this blog has a readability score of 62.2. Dr Flesch would be proud.

Oxford Dictionaries has chosen its word (or phrase) of the year for 2011, from a list of lexical contenders synonymous with 2011. The competition was fierce. ‘Arab Spring’, in honour of the turmoil rife across the Middle East, came close, as did ‘sodcasting’, the practise of playing music loudly from your mobile phone in a public place. Signifying a rally against capitalism, ‘occupy’ threatened to sneak up on the outside with a grubby beard and thermos. But in the end there was only one winner, and unsurprisingly it had a financial twist. It was hard to read a paragraph of journalism commentary this year without the ‘squeezed middle’ rearing its ugly, er, middle. And if you’re still unsure what it means, it refers to the portion of working Brits struggling to survive on stagnant wages and rising prices. Let’s hope Oxford Dictionaries’ 2012 word of the year has a more positive vibe. ‘Prosperous middle’, perhaps? Don’t hold your breath.

Writing a blog. What could be a trendier, more cutting edge way of attracting more eyes to your business website? But if no one ever reads it, you might as well have spent your time cutting your toenails.

Blogging website quickblogtips.com has compiled a series of tips for writing the kind of blogs people like to read. These include choosing your subject carefully (not littering your business blog with off-topic Ronnie Corbett-esque sidetracks), coming up with a killer headline and first paragraph (people’s attention span is notoriously short, especially online), previewing your future posts (tempt people back with promises of your future pearls of wisdom), replying to people’s comments (so that they feel, you know, special), commenting on other people’s blogs with links back to your own site, and lists. Lists? So, just to recap:

1: Pick the right subject.

2: Grab their attention.

3: Trail your next post.

4: Reply to comments.

5: Comment on other blogs.

6: Lists. Because people like them.

A special Christmas-flavoured word of the month this time.

FARCTATE – The state of being stuffed with food (overeating)

So enjoy your festive break, but don’t become too farctated.