Janet Tilden is the owner of Executive Rewrites, founded in 1998 to provide writing and editorial services to Internet users. Janet has been a writer since she was a pupil in Mrs. Kleese’s second-grade class at Clarmar Elementary in 1965. She began her editorial career by copyediting The Rustler (student newspaper at Fremont Senior High School in Fremont, Nebraska) in 1974, then went off to Northfield, Minnesota and provided the same services as a staff member of the Carletonian, the weekly student newspaper of Carleton College. After graduating from Carleton in 1980, Janet lived in Chicago for 14 years and then headed back to her home state of Nebraska. From 1980 to 2004, Janet’s employers included Nelson-Hall Book Publishers, the International Graphoanalysis Society (IGAS), ScottForesman / HarperCollins, and SKAR Advertising. In September 2004 Janet switched from part-time self-employment to full-time entrepreneurship with all its pleasures and perils.
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RewriteLady's Blog 
July 12, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Hi, Rewrite Lady.
I was recently writing something for an international company. One of its subsidiaries had received 2 certifications at the same time about a month ago and now had received two more certifications for something else in the same week. In a write-up about the subsidiary’s most recent certifications, I referred to the company as having scored another another “double whammy” with its latest achievement.
One of the company execs who reviewed the article asked that I not use the term “double whammy.” He thought it had a negative connotation as in, for example, Italian Prime Minister Burlusconi’s latest sex scandal and divorce – a double whammy (against Burlusconi).
The reader was British and I thought maybe there could be a difference between British and American usage since I thought “double whammy” was generally a positive thing, as in “Yes! A double whammy!” or “I scored a double whammy!” Or perhaps it depends on whether you are the “whamm-er” or the person being “whammed.”
What do you think? Is a “double whammy” a good or a bad thing?
July 12, 2009 at 10:52 pm
To me, “double whammy” sounds like a bad thing–for example, being fired from a job and being diagnosed with cancer on the same day (“being hit by a double whammy”).