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Posts Tagged ‘Definitions’

A letter to @APStylebook

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , on May 1, 2012| 6 Comments »

Dear AP:

I don’t know if I can continue in this relationship. I trusted you, but you betrayed me with that trollop, “hopefully.” You know how I feel about that word. How could you do this to me?

Your change of heart was swift — much quicker than your decisions about “email” and “website.” How long did you go on defending yourself about those two, even when the whole world used the form you finally adopted? Everyone knew you would cave eventually. But “hopefully” was, sadly, a blindside. At least for me.

You might say, “The whole world used ‘hopefully’ to mean ‘I hope’ or ‘It is hoped,’ so what’s the big deal?” You and I both know that there is a huge difference between deleting a hyphen (“e-mail”) and accepting a word used improperly. Just because everyone uses it the wrong way doesn’t mean it is OK.

I held you to a high standard. I badgered students in my classes to learn your mysterious ways or face certain peril, grade-wise. Now I just don’t know if I can continue to cite you, to force adherence, to claim allegiance.

You are a sellout. I’m so disappointed in you. I’m not the only one who feels this way.

It’s been two weeks and I’m still not even close to being over this stab to the back of good grammar. It will take time. It may not happen at all.

I hope you understand.

Sincerely,

Beth
Your Former No. 1 Fan

P.S. Of course, you can make it all better and say it was just a joke. Please say you were just kidding.

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Freaks like me

Posted in Grammar, etc., Random, tagged , , , , , , on February 21, 2012| 7 Comments »

About 400 people have linked, emailed, tweeted or otherwise made me aware of this cartoon:

I love the cartoon, and I love that people thought (think) of me when they saw (see) it.

(That’s indeed how I feel on a regular basis.)

While most of my friends and family know me as the grammar guru, the Internet thinks I’m a different kind of freak. Just look at the search terms people used that led them to my blog.

Finding me via “parasites” and other such terms makes sense because of my “Procrastination by parasite” post.

And “rednecks” also makes sense because of my frequent posts about the “Redneck Games.”

“Butterfly McQueen” and “antithesis” led searchers to posts about rhetorical devices.

I can even explain “std in the mouth” because I admitted in the procrastination post that my leap into the information vortex includes viewing images of “STD outbreaks” and “meth mouth.”

The last term is inexplicable on many levels: Who uses “inhumans wallpaper” as a search term? Why did the search engine pick me? What did searchers really want?

Not someone who likes to talk about grammar, for sure.

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Signs of the week (weak?)

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , on August 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This person needs a "tutor" for English too. Or maybe he DOES want a member of 16th-century English royalty.

I'd rather have an "omelet" or an "omelette."

"Eat of it," meaning the animals will just sample whatever someone tosses in? They are more likely to eat the whole darn thing.

Belk's sign maker needs a crash course in possessives.

No mistake here. I just want to let you know that Zumba is apparently not allowed.

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Thank you for being a friend

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , on June 28, 2011| 8 Comments »

One of the bad aspects of Facebook is that grammar/punctuation mistakes are out there for friends to see. It’s good for a grammarian like me, though, who can use mistakes as fodder for her blog. Here are three mistakes I’ve seen too often in the past week.*

“Awe”
Many people write this when they mean “aw,” as in an exclamation of dismay or some other sentiment. “Awe” conveys wonder or respect.
Example: “I am in awe of her inability to use ‘aw’ correctly.”

“Whenever”
Don’t confuse “whenever” with “when.” “Whenever” means that something always happens. “When” means it happened once.
Example 1: “When I went to the store yesterday, I bought Brussels sprouts.”
Example 2: “Whenever I go to the store, I buy beer.”

“Myself”
If you want to identify yourself in a photo, just use “me” or “I,” depending on the sentence. Don’t write “Charles and myself at graduation” or whatever.
Example: “This is a photo of Royce, Trish and me competing in the Bobbing for Pigs’ Feet event at the Redneck Games.”

I know Facebook is a fun forum, but let’s try not to butcher the language. Thanks.

(Uh oh. Do I hear the sound of dozens of “unfriend” clicks?)

* No images of the offenders’ comments; I don’t want to embarrass them publicly.

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You might be a redneck if …

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , on April 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

… you have a portalet on the back of your pickup.

My neighbor might be a redneck.

I’m not sure if I am becoming one, or am one already, but I certainly live next to some.

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, here’s my take:

Your neighbor might be a redneck if …

  • He doesn’t own a shirt. (If my next-door neighbor has one, he never wears it.)
  • She drives to the mailbox.
  • You had to put up a taller fence to keep your neighbor from peeping over it to see what you were doing.
  • Her free-range terrier tried to kill your chicken. (Wait — that might make me a redneck too.)
  • She operates a beauty salon in her garage.
  • He has an RV in his back yard, and his kids live in it. (To be clear, they are grown.)
  • There has been a refrigerator box in his yard for three months.

Including the portalet, there are eight examples of redneckery afoot in my neighborhood. Yet I’m only talking about four different neighbors.

Redneck is as redneck does (apologies to Forrest Gump).

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Procrastination by parasite

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , on April 15, 2011| 7 Comments »

Procrastination takes many forms. With me, it takes the form of a dive into the information vortex.

Specifically, a vortex swirling with images of bed bug-infested mattresses, STD outbreaks, Meth Mouth and bad plastic surgery.

This week’s topic is (drumroll, please) Awful Parasites. (Yes, I do love the show “Monsters Inside Me.”) Here are my favorite horrible kinds:

  • Human Bot Fly, native to South America and parts of North America
  • The Filarial Worm, which completes its entire lifecycle inside its human host
  • Candiru, the “toothpick fish” attracted to urea. Guess where you find urea? Bad news for the fellas. The following image shows one just removed from a poor guy’s (ahem) parts.
  • The Guinea Worm, contracted by drinking contaminated water in South Asia and Africa
  • Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, which, unlike the above, is not a human parasite. This creature attacks fish by going in through the gills, attaching to the tongue, and extracting the blood so that the tongue atrophies. Then the parasite acts as the fish’s tongue. Shudder.

Now I feel all gross and itchy, but I’ve succeeded in wasting plenty of time. Enjoy!

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Dreaming of past tense and pronunciation

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , , , , on March 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

The following tweet and resulting class discussion prompted today’s post:

The discussion concerned the use of “dreamt.” Should he have used “dreamed” instead?

Both are correct, but “dreamed” is standard American, while “dreamt” is a British thing. So #Ross can use “dreamt” without raising an eyebrow, along with “regards,” “towards,” “spilt” and “learnt.” Americans drop that “s” in the former two and use the “ed” form in the latter two.

And that brings me to other “ed” issues.

  • The correct past tense of the verb “to plead” is “pleaded” (at least according to AP Style). Sorry “pled” lovers.
  • The preferred pronunciation of “striped” is “strEYEpt.” Fortunately for Claire, Merriam-Webster also allows “strEYE-ped.”
  • The most common pronunciation of “blessed” is “BLESS-ed,” but Merriam allows the one syllable variant as well. It depends on how you use it. One syllable for “I’ve been blessed with a generally even-keeled demeanor, even in the face of perceived classroom disrespect” and two for a use such as “I never get one blessed moment of peace at home.”

And by the way, I have never brought any Starburst candy for class — laced with drugs or not.

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Rednecks, Cheetos and Glenn Beck

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I love that WordPress lets me know how people find my blog via search engines. For example:

My posts about the annual Redneck Games, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and rhetorical devices get the most visitors from search engines. Interesting.

I talked to Trish yesterday about following up our Redneck Games extravaganza with the annual Claxton Rattlesnake Roundup next month. She claimed she put it on her calendar. Hmmm. I suspect I’ll have to hound her into submission.

I’ve got nothing to say today about the Cheetos. I have a pantry packed with Flamin’ goodness.

I’m not sure I’ve got much left to say about rhetorical devices. And that’s a device right there. Aporia (“Uh-POHR-ee-uh”) is the act of expressing real or simulated doubt.

Another one comes to mind because some friends and I have been talking about the musical “Hair.” (It has been 10 years since we — yes, I was in it — performed it at SCAD.)

“Ain’t Got No” is an example of anaphora (“Uh-NAF-er-uh”) because each line begins with the same words.

Finally (for today), dialysis refers to weighing two arguments as a choice: either/or, this/not that, no/yes, etc. For example, I had a Twitter spat with some woman in Atlanta who objected to what I said about Glenn Beck:

 

So, according to nautilus55, EITHER I like Glenn Beck, OR I am a liberal. No room for anything else there, I guess. And that’s a false dilemma, my friends, which is a logical fallacy. More about those some other time …

 

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Words for the week (weak?)

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , , , on January 28, 2011| 4 Comments »

Writing a dissertation is a marathon, not a sprint. For me, it is a marathon that also includes deviations off the path to experience some waterboarding, flaying and pillorying.

There is a special place in hell reserved for the people who devise the rules, regulations and procedures governing thesis projects and dissertations at state universities.

But enough about that. I have plenty of time to complain about the dissertation process over the next three months. Let’s talk about something fun — like words that I love.

Hobo
This is a great word I’ve managed to use twice this week. I imagine plenty of stubble, patches, and a stick holding belongings tied in a kerchief — the whole nine yards.

Raggedy
Straight up to’ up. I also like “rickety.”

Ghastly
I use it when “horrible” just won’t do.

Barf
Succinct and illustrative.

Sycophant
It says so much more than “brown-noser” or “flatterer” could. I’ve only used this once this week, but there’s still time.

Hmmm … I see a theme emerging. Must be my general mental state. See first two sentences.

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Feeling “Meh”-velous, thank you

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , on January 20, 2011| 4 Comments »

The word for the day is “meh.”

It is one of my favorite words, as students who have taken my classes will attest. I use it as an utterance in class, but also as a simple comment in the margin near a part of the submission I find less than stellar.

“Meh” beautifully conveys emotion — or rather, lack of emotion. It is a verbal shrug, a noncommittal answer, an indication of indifference.

It is the word for the day because my esteemed colleague Jonathan Rabb told me that one of our mutual students tried to use it in the narrative of a paper for his class. And then, when Jonathan balked, that person tried to justify it by citing me.

No, no, no. It can be used in a quote (“Meh,” she said). It can be used as a reaction (see above image). It can’t really be used in a narrative. It is akin to other interjections such as “Argh!” or “Rats!” (or even old-school Shaggy‘s “Zoinks!”) and has to be treated as such. Yes, even though it is now included in some dictionaries. Read this article for more on the origin and status of the word. (Note: I would put quotation marks around the word as it is used in the dictionary’s example.)

Despite its limitations, I think it is a lovely word that says so much with so little. I would like to celebrate the word by wearing this:

So, it is fair to say that I don’t feel “meh” about “meh.”

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