Caryn Gootkin is consumed by thoughts of death and the way we talk, write and sing about it following a friend’s slow, painful death. My columns are usually whimsical and somewhat irreverent... Read more
ATM, EFT, SME, GST are acronyms used by banks to cover up what looks like stealing. IUV, IV, ECG are words used by doctors to justify fees that are sometimes triple medical aids’ rates. The... Read more
Caryn Gootkin wonders if she has bitten off more than she can chew in her quest to understand and advise her clients how to comply with the legislative imperative to communicate with consume... Read more
Following on from her previous (rather serious) column on South Africa’s alarming unemployment figures, Caryn Gootkin scours the net and picks her friends’ brains to come up with some unusua... Read more
Caryn Gootkin overanalyses adverts in an information leaflet that fell out of a magazine she was reading one Saturday afternoon. I’m Caryn and I am a linguistic pedant. I wish there was a 10... Read more
Caryn Gootkin considers how the use of capital letters can affect the meaning we convey and the sometimes embarrassing, often comedic consequences of their absence in spoken language. My gra... Read more
