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Posts Tagged ‘Definitions’

Written on my portable electronic word delivery apparatus

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , on January 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

I’m not an avid reader of the Financial Times but, thanks to 36-Hour Tina (and that’s starting to sound like some kind of creepy porn name), I am a fan of Lucy Kellaway.

She is a management columnist, and (yet?) is quite funny. She also is a kindred spirit. In her latest column, Kellaway discusses the branding of books as “reading containers” and cars as “sustainable mobility solutions.”

Oh my.

Tina is becoming quite the resource. She also provided this lovely bit of nonsense.

EUR claws its way back to 1.2900 on PBOC reserve diversification talk; trader preference still to fade rallies.

Whaaaa?

She said this is an example of “run speak,” which is the “commentary traders attach to prices of bonds, currencies, etc.”

Well.

I think I’ll stick to my kind of creative nonfiction.

 

 

 

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Symbol of thanks

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , , , on November 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

On this day of thanksgiving, I am thankful for family, friends, health, a great job, and all of the usual things.

And I’m also thankful for punctuation.

  • Quotation marks: Thank you for telling us when someone else starts talking and finishes, helping us recognize exact language in other instances, and also when a word is not being used in its usual sense. I feel awful that people incorrectly use you to emphasize a word.
  • Parentheses: Without you, we would not know that the writer is offering an aside (information that is useful, but not crucial).
  • Brackets: You are underused, I think, because people don’t know what to do with you. You set text apart, insert some information, identify clarifications, enclose missing material, and help out in math. Perhaps you are not as common as [several other marks] but you are useful nonetheless. Thanks!
  • Ellipsis: People like to add to you. But it’s nice that you have just three simple characters … and that you show that the writer omitted something.
  • Hyphen: Thank you for connecting words to modify a noun. Without you, the phrase “dirty-movie theater” wouldn’t be as interesting. We also appreciate the way you create numbers, show time periods and create fractions.
  • Dash: You are another mark with substance — like a super hyphen — to show change in thought or that the speaker has been interrupted. Thank you for your heavy lifting. (Note: I’m talking about the “em dash” here. AP Style doesn’t recognize the “en dash,” so I don’t either.)
  • Question mark: Do you know how useful you are? Thank you for allowing us to ask a question. And in Spanish, you get all fancy!
  • Exclamation point: You are the sad victim of abuse. It’s terrible! When used sparingly, you provide an element of excitement. Thank you!
  • Apostrophe: Thank you for letting us know what belongs to whom, and when some letters are missing. You’re the best!
  • Comma: We appreciate your ability to link similar items, but also show difference.
  • Semicolon: You’re like a super comma; we celebrate you because you are completely awesome.
  • Colon: You are more substantial than a comma or semicolon, but not quite as burly as a period. In addition to making introductions, you do other important things: separate hours from minutes, chapter from verse, and two numbers in a proportion. Thanks.
  • Period: We celebrate your ability to end a thought. Period.

Thank you, handy symbols — not just today, but every day!

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Object of my (dis)affection

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , on November 11, 2010| 5 Comments »

Why is it so hard for people to know when to use “I” and “me” in a sentence?

I think it is easy. It is easy for me. Subject vs. object.

I blame Bryan Adams, Lady Gaga, and, yes, even Stevie Wonder.

People hear songs with pronouns used incorrectly and must think, “Well, if Stevie does it, it must be right.”

Here we are on earth together,
It’s you and I. — Stevie Wonder, “You and I”

Yeah something about
Baby you and I. — Lady Gaga, “You and I”

She says her love for me could never die
But that’d change if she ever found out about you and I. — Bryan Adams, “Run to You”

In all of these cases, the proper pronoun is “me.” The indicator for the last two is the word “about.” That word is a preposition. The pronouns are objects of that prepositional phrase.
An easy way to tell which word to use is to take out “you and.” If you do that, the Lady and Dudes just sound silly:
  • “It’s I”
  • “Something about I”
  • “Found out about I”

Don’t be afraid of “me.”

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Egg-citing news!

Posted in Chickens, tagged , , , , on November 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

There is an imposter in our midst. Jeanne is not what the feed store said she was. She is not an Araucana. She does not really have ear tufts but she does have a rump.

And, as we found out on Tuesday, she lays pinky-beige eggs, not blue ones.

Jeanne was two months behind Trish on egg production. Maybe she heard Eddie’s threats. At any rate, we were excited!

 

Her first effort was a little small, but the next day’s was bigger.

Jeanne's products compared with store-bought. Her first egg is pictured at the bottom right. The second effort is on the bottom left.

We are so proud of Jeanne, Araucana or not! (And now Eddie can stop threatening her life.)

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Giving a rat’s ass

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , on September 2, 2010| 2 Comments »

Why are apostrophes so difficult for some people? Either something is possessing something or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then it just needs an “s.”

The person who writes the promotional materials for Monkey Joe’s needs a refresher course in the rules.

Let’s take a closer look:

What is that apostrophe doing there when “fundraisers” should be  a simple plural word? I’ll tell you what: making the person seem dumb.

And since I’m on the subject of appearing to be dumb, let’s talk about this phrase:

I could care less.

If you really could care less than you do, then that is correct. However, people usually use it to mean, “I don’t give a rat’s ass.” In that case, the correct phrase is:

I couldn’t care less.

And that means the speaker really doesn’t care at all.

If you use the wrong phrase,  you seem dumb to people like me who care about proper usage. And then I couldn’t care less about you.

Harsh? Maybe. Truthful? Yes.

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Publication envy

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

I must confess that I am jealous of Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson. “Who are they?” you might ask. If you did, then you are not one of the dozen or so people who have sent me the link to all the coverage of their amazing book, “The Great Typo Hunt.”

I used to read their blog, but now the blog seems more focused on their amazing book tour. A book tour. For writing a book about noticing and fixing typos. SIGH.

Maybe someday “Eats, Shoots and Lays” will be a book. But until then, I must be satisfied with noting errors on a small scale.

Lucky me, there is no shortage of errors.

In today’s mail, there was a doozy:

AFLAC is a fairly big company, no? So they must have some senior folks in charge of their unsolicited mailings. Well, whoever these folks are, they need to revisit the rules for apostrophes.

I’ll go a little easier on the produce manager at Piggly Wiggly because the mistake is not quite as public. (It didn’t go through the U.S. mail on the cover of an envelope.)

Hmm … “Beefstake” tomatoes. Like really chunky, flavorful tomatoes grown on a piece of wood stuck in the ground? Or like “beefcake” — muscular, handsome tomatoes? Oh it’s a darn heterograph tripping up our friend in produce. “Beefsteak” is the word he/she needs.

Speaking of public, this is about as public as it gets:

Stay classy, North Carolina!

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Redneck missionary work

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , , on July 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

When Trish and I were getting in my car after the Redneck Games, I noticed something stuck under my windshield. I just grabbed it and threw it in the car without looking at it. Much later, when I was about to throw it away, I actually looked at it.

The headline: “Rednecks can be Christians too!”

Oh boy.

Let me share with you some “wisdom” from the pamphlet.

If I had to stand before a dozen terrorists who threaten my life, I’d choose a half dozen or so rednecks to back me up. Tire irons, squirrel guns and grit — that’s what rednecks are made of.

Wow. Somehow I don’t think a tire iron is a match for an AK47. But maybe a squirrel gun is equal to an IED made by a weak terrorist in training. Grit, as in gumption, might be equal, although grit, as in particles, probably is not: Sand tends to get in crannies a little more obnoxiously than Georgia red clay does.

I’ve scanned the brochure for your enjoyment.

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Dan Gilbert needs help

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , on July 9, 2010| 4 Comments »

Despite the fact that I don’t give a rat’s ass where LeBron James ends up, I have not been able to escape the news (Miami). Apparently, there are some folks in the Buckeye State who are pretty pissed off — folks like Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who wrote an open letter to fans of the Cavs.

I don’t really care about the letter, except to point out that someone should have proofread it with an eye toward unnecessary quotation marks. Take a look at this excerpt:

To make matters worse, that font is Comic Sans.

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BP stands for Bad PR

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2010| 11 Comments »

Oh, the irony in this sign at a BP station in Ohio. If I spilled anything at that station, I’d take my cue from the head of BP and I’d pretend it wasn’t that bad, blame everyone else, and then not let anyone else give me ideas on how to clean it up.

Tony Hayward, have you learned nothing from those unfortunate CEOs who have come before you in crisis? Apparently.

One of the topics I cover in my Promotional Writing class is crisis management. Crisis is nothing new, so there are plenty of case studies. Why don’t people learn from the mistakes of others?

Good crisis management: Tylenol in the ’80s, Hugh Grant, Jim Joyce. Bad crisis management: Tylenol in the ’00s, Tiger Woods, Exxon. Horrible crisis management: BP has no equal.

Here is how you handle a crisis in three easy steps:

  1. Talk to the media immediately and regularly.
  2. Apologize.
  3. Make it right by fixing the problem and compensating the victims.

BP has done none of these things. In fact, they’ve pretty much done the opposite of what they should have done. Who is advising these people?

And they keep making it worse in so many ways. One of those ways is that they are not allowing media to document the situation. Don’t they understand that they are squandering a prime opportunity to salvage their reputation? They could show the world what they are doing to fix the problem.

Unless, of course, they don’t really want to show what they are doing.

Hmmm…

I’ll leave you with this image, and the knowledge that I’ll never buy from BP again.

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A T. Rex tale

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , on May 6, 2010| 4 Comments »

I love Thursdays because on Thursdays I get folders from my children’s teachers that have work from the past week. It is the day I read Dominic’s stories. And I laugh and laugh. I hope you will too.

“The Dinosaur Story” by Dominic

Once upon a time there was a T. Rex. Me and Gideon and my daddy and Mona were hunting for dinosaurs.* We saw a T. Rex. We ran because it was hungry to eat humans. Then we saw a Euoplocephalus. We petted it. We rode on the Euoplocephalus and its tail hit the T. Rex’s leg and it fell down. We said, “Are you going to be good, T. Rex?” He said, “Raa Raa!” We rode back home on the T. Rex and gave it meat.

Mona, the T. Rex and a tree that needs water

Yes, he used the word “Euoplocephalus,” and he knows what one looks like (although he did not draw it). It is clear he is my son, and fellow lover of words.

*Note: He informed me that this is just pretend because humans never lived with dinosaurs.

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