More practice with the language you're learning
Supplementary support — grammar, vocabulary, speaking and review — built from language already taught in the course. Not a lesson, and never a test.
1.Notice first: read these and say what they share — "**Name it**: 'Yesterday afternoon our card system charged 8,400 customers twice.'" / "**Own it**: 'That was our error, not our processor's, and I signed off the release that caused it.'" / "**Specify**: 'Refunds were sent at 9pm last night. If you haven't seen yours by midnight tonight, reply to this thread and we will handle it manually within 24 hours.'"
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Short-form under pressure at C2: (a) NAME IT — say plainly what happened, not what has been alleged or come to your attention; (b) OWN IT — put the actor in the sentence; passive voice is the tell of a legal draft ('mistakes were made'); (c) SPECIFY — one concrete fact (a time, a number, a decision) so the post is not interchangeable with any other apology; (d) DATE IT — commit to a next moment, on the record, so the post is a promise not a mood.
2.NAME IT for a data-breach post that a lawyer would have written as 'we have identified unauthorised access'.
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'On Tuesday, someone got into our system and downloaded 12,000 email addresses. Yours may be one of them.'
3.OWN IT rewrite of 'mistakes were made in the review process'.
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'I chose not to run the second review, because I thought we were behind schedule. That was my call and it was wrong.'
4.DATE IT for a workplace-culture apology so it doesn't die as a mood.
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'On the 30th I'll publish the three specific changes we've made and the two we've decided against — and why.'
5.Sort these into "natural" and "not natural" and justify each decision out loud: "**Name it**: 'Yesterday afternoon our card system charged 8,400 customers twice.'" · "**Own it**: 'That was our error, not our processor's, and I signed off the release that caused it.'" · "**Specify**: 'Refunds were sent at 9pm last night. If you haven't seen yours by midnight tonight, reply to this thread and we will handle it manually within 24 hours.'" · "**Date it**: 'On Friday I'll post the postmortem — what changed in the release process and what we're doing about the review that didn't catch it.'"
6.Build three sentences on this pattern about your own week — one neutral, one emphatic, one tentative.
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Short-form under pressure at C2: (a) NAME IT — say plainly what happened, not what has been alleged or come to your attention; (b) OWN IT — put the actor in the sentence; passive voice is the tell of a legal draft ('mistakes were made'); (c) SPECIFY — one concrete fact (a time, a number, a decision) so the post is not interchangeable with any other apology; (d) DATE IT — commit to a next moment, on the record, so the post is a promise not a mood.
1.Fill: 'The whole post is ____ ____.' (2 words)
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legal cotton
2.Fill: 'Every sentence has to pass the ____ ____.' (2 words)
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screenshot test
3.Fill: 'A ____ ____ is not evasion — it's the choice to wait.' (2 words)
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decisive silence
4.Complete in context: "Name it plainly. 'Charged twice' beats 'billing anomaly'."
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to name it plainly
5.Complete in context: "Own it in the first person or the post reads like a court filing."
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to own it in the first person
6.Complete in context: "The whole post is ______ — nobody trusts it."
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legal cotton wool
7.Complete in context: "'Do better' is ______. It commits to nothing."
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slogan-isation
8.Complete in context: "Date the promise or the whole thing dies as PR."
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to date the promise
9.Complete in context: "Every sentence has to pass ______."
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the screenshot test
10.Complete in context: "This one doesn't pass ______. Say nothing today."
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the do-not-post threshold
11.Complete in context: "A decisive silence is not evasion — it's the choice to wait."
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a decisive silence
12.Cover the list. Which words can you still recall, and what does each one add that a simpler word wouldn't?
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to name it plainly — to describe what happened in everyday words, not legal ones | to own it in the first person — to make the actor visible in the sentence, singular or plural | legal cotton wool — phrases so hedged they signal a lawyer wrote them and the company is afraid | slogan-isation — reducing a serious claim to a tweetable line so smooth it stops meaning anything | to date the promise — to attach a specific next moment on the record so the post is a commitment, not a mood | the screenshot test — asking whether a single line of the post, screenshotted alone, would still be defensible | the do-not-post threshold — the honest question of whether a piece of short-form should exist at all | a decisive silence — the deliberate choice to say nothing when saying anything would cheapen it
1.Give two natural word partners for "to name it plainly" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: Name it plainly. 'Charged twice' beats 'billing anomaly'.
2.Give two natural word partners for "to own it in the first person" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: Own it in the first person or the post reads like a court filing.
3.Give two natural word partners for "legal cotton wool" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: The whole post is legal cotton wool — nobody trusts it.
4.Give two natural word partners for "slogan-isation" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: 'Do better' is slogan-isation. It commits to nothing.
5.Give two natural word partners for "to date the promise" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: Date the promise or the whole thing dies as PR.
6.Give two natural word partners for "the screenshot test" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: Every sentence has to pass the screenshot test.
7.Give two natural word partners for "the do-not-post threshold" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: This one doesn't pass the do-not-post threshold. Say nothing today.
8.Give two natural word partners for "a decisive silence" (adjective + noun, verb + noun, or adverb + adjective), then use one.
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Model use: A decisive silence is not evasion — it's the choice to wait.
9.Choose three words from this lesson and build one sentence that uses all three naturally.
1.Rewrite so the meaning stays the same but you do NOT use "to name it plainly": "Name it plainly. 'Charged twice' beats 'billing anomaly'."
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Keep the meaning of: to describe what happened in everyday words, not legal ones
2.Rewrite so the meaning stays the same but you do NOT use "to own it in the first person": "Own it in the first person or the post reads like a court filing."
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Keep the meaning of: to make the actor visible in the sentence, singular or plural
3.Rewrite so the meaning stays the same but you do NOT use "legal cotton wool": "The whole post is legal cotton wool — nobody trusts it."
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Keep the meaning of: phrases so hedged they signal a lawyer wrote them and the company is afraid
4.Rewrite so the meaning stays the same but you do NOT use "slogan-isation": "'Do better' is slogan-isation. It commits to nothing."
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Keep the meaning of: reducing a serious claim to a tweetable line so smooth it stops meaning anything
5.Rewrite so the meaning stays the same but you do NOT use "to date the promise": "Date the promise or the whole thing dies as PR."
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Keep the meaning of: to attach a specific next moment on the record so the post is a commitment, not a mood
6.Summarise the lesson's main idea in exactly 20 words — no more, no less.
1.Draft 1: a rail company's post about a fatality on the line.
2.Draft 2: a fashion brand's response to a viral video of a shop assistant being rude to a customer.
3.Draft 3: a bank's post 90 minutes into an ongoing outage.
4.Long turn (2 minutes, no notes): Teacher gives you a live scenario — an unfolding public incident affecting your company / institution / project. In 20 minutes you MUST produce: (a) ONE published post under 100 words that names · owns · specifies · dates, (b) ONE draft you decided to kill, with a 40-word reason, (c) ONE 'no post today' decision with a 40-word reason. You defend all three aloud to teacher, who plays a hostile board member: 'Why aren't we saying more?' and 'Why are we saying that at all?' both get asked.
5.Record 90 seconds using at least four of: to name it plainly, to own it in the first person, legal cotton wool, the screenshot test, the do-not-post threshold. Listen back and mark one thing to make more precise.
1.Plan first: write a three-line outline (position → strongest support → concession) before you draft.
2.Pick a real or invented unfolding crisis. Write THREE short-form pieces about it and hand in all three, each with a 40-word rationale: (a) a 90-word public apology post for the company / institution's official account, (b) a 60-word personal-account post from the leader that Post A couldn't say, (c) a 100-word 24-hours-later postmortem update. Across the three you MUST use every one of NAME · OWN · SPECIFY · DATE at least once each, and use at least SIX target items naturally. Nothing may be slogan-isation. (250 words total across three posts (90 + 60 + 100)). Include: to name it plainly, to own it in the first person, legal cotton wool, slogan-isation, to date the promise, the screenshot test, the do-not-post threshold.
3.Model analysis: compare your text with the model. What does the model do in its first and last sentences that yours doesn't?
1.Examiners reward candidates who summarise source material precisely and take a dated, specific stance — the microcopy discipline of NAME · SPECIFY applied to essay openings and closings.
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Open a Part 1 essay by naming what the two texts actually claim (not 'the texts discuss important issues'). Close by taking a specific, dated position ('If forced to prioritise one over the coming decade, I would…') rather than a slogan ('we must all work together').
2.Where does Post A fail the SCREENSHOT TEST line by line?
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'Reports that some customers have experienced' — passive, distanced, and vague. 'Take our responsibility extremely seriously' — legal cotton wool. 'In due course' — no date. 'Any inconvenience' — refuses to say what happened. Every clause is defensible in court and useless to a customer.
3.Where and how does Post B NAME IT?
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Line 1: exact time window, exact system, exact number. 'Charged 8,400 customers twice.' No 'billing issue', no 'incident'.
4.Where does Post B OWN IT?
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'Not our processor's, not our bank's — ours' and 'I signed off the release. It is on me.' The actor is in the sentence — first-person singular from the CEO.
5.Where does Post B DATE THE PROMISE?
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Two dates: 'by midnight tonight' for individual refunds and 'On Friday I'll post the postmortem.' Both are on the record and both are checkable.
6.What does the last paragraph do that a slogan could not?
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It refuses 'apology for inconvenience' by name, and puts a specific harm (rent didn't clear) directly on the CEO's replies. It costs the company something. That is what makes it read as human.
1.In your own words, when do you use "Microcopy craft: name it · own it · specify · date it"?
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Short-form under pressure at C2: (a) NAME IT — say plainly what happened, not what has been alleged or come to your attention; (b) OWN IT — put the actor in the sentence; passive voice is the tell of a legal draft ('mistakes were made'); (c) SPECIFY — one concrete fact (a time, a number, a decision) so the post is not interchangeable with any other apology; (d) DATE IT — commit to a next moment, on the record, so the post is a promise not a mood.
2.Complete naturally: "Name it plainly. 'Charged twice' beats 'billing anomaly'."
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to name it plainly
3.Complete naturally: "Own it in the first person or the post reads like a court filing."
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to own it in the first person
4.Complete naturally: "The whole post is ______ — nobody trusts it."
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legal cotton wool
5.Complete naturally: "'Do better' is ______. It commits to nothing."
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slogan-isation
6.Complete naturally: "Date the promise or the whole thing dies as PR."
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to date the promise
7.Two-minute retell: summarise the reading/listening from this lesson without looking at it.
8.When did you last see a corporate post that read like a lawyer had written it — and what did it cost the company that day?
9.When did a decisive silence you noticed (from an org or a person) increase your trust in them?