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Posts Tagged ‘Requests’

Save the children

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2011| 12 Comments »

No. 7, “Why my children will be scarred for life,” tied for second place with No. 8, “The time I was sentenced to church,” in the Choose your own adventure race. Today I feel the need to address that topic. (Eventually, I’ll tell the church story also.)

So here goes:

Why my children will be scarred for life:

I stifle their creativity.
I will not let Dominic make sound effects in my car. I will not let Gideon draw on his bedroom walls with a Sharpie.

I limit their ability to make fashion choices.
I will not let Dominic wear a cape to school. I make Gideon wear his jacket when it is below 68 degrees outside.

I restrict their freedom of expression.
I will not let Dominic talk about poop at the dinner table. I will not let Gideon have a tantrum in the grocery store because I refuse to buy chocolate Easter bunnies.

I prohibit lifestyle choices.
I will not let Dominic subsist on bread alone. I will not let Gideon eat candy instead of a meal.

I repress their nurturing capabilities.
I will not let Dominic have a bat for a pet. I will not let Gideon and Mona the Dog swap spit.

Do you think I’m a terrible mother yet? Here’s more evidence:

  • I make them listen to the Ramones, the Monkees, Neil Diamond, Journey, Lady Gaga, the Pixies, Katy Perry, Marvin Gaye, Duran Duran, the B-52’s, Darius Rucker and Hanson — sometimes all in one day during the drive to school (view sample playlist).
  • I make them do manual labor: make their beds, clean up their toys, feed the dog, feed the cat, give water to the hermit crabs, carry in the groceries, carry their dirty dishes to the sink, help me make dinner, sweep the stairs, vacuum the living room, help Eddie with the yard work, etc.
  • I make them watch as many nature documentaries as episodes of “iCarly” and “Spongebob Squarepants.”
  • I make them eat kid-unfriendly vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, leeks, rutabagas, squash, broccoli, green beans, eggplant, beets, turnips, mushrooms, fennel, peppers, onions, spinach and celery. (Each of those has appeared on their plates some time over the past two months.)

So there you have it: one awful mother = two scarred children. Judge away.


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No. 4 for the win

Posted in Random, tagged , , on March 25, 2011| 1 Comment »

Well, I’m surprised. No. 4, “My latest food crushes,” won the “Choose your own adventure” race. No. 7, “Why my children will be scarred for life,” and No. 8, “The time I was sentenced to church,” tied for second.

As you wish.

I can still attack a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, but I’ve moved on.

Warning: The following items are not very healthy, especially if you eat them in large, ridiculous quantities (not that I would do that, of course), but they are delicious!

  1. Dark chocolate with sea salt from L’Artigiano by way of Wright Square Café in Savannah. Expensive as hell, but totally worth it.
  2. Gianduja hazelnut chocolate paste from Leone by way of Eataly in New York. It’s like Nutella’s snooty, cultured older brother. I feel like carrying a tube around in my purse and squeezing it into my mouth at stoplights.
  3. Fage Greek yogurt with fruit. My favorite is the blueberry-acai. Sweet grandmother’s spatula!
  4. Kettle brand baked potato chips, salt and fresh ground pepper flavor. I can be full to the bloated point and still devour an entire bag.
  5. Annie Chun’s sesame seaweed snacks. I have my friend Sophia to thank for this addiction. It seems like something you shouldn’t eat — it looks like a piece of green, crumply paper — but it tastes so good!
  6. Basler Läckerli, a Swiss biscuit made with spices, honey, almonds. I’ve been to Switzerland twice, both times around Christmas, which is when these treats are popular. I found them in Bern. I would fly to Switzerland just for these things. Actually, I would even walk and swim to Switzerland for them. They are that good. 

So that’s it. All my latest nasty little snack secrets are out in the open. I feel so vulnerable. (And fat.)

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Choose your own adventure

Posted in Random, tagged , on March 23, 2011| 7 Comments »

Writer’s block. Dissertation stress. The lure of my pollinated backyard.

Whatever the reason, it is quite sad that I have had nothing to say here since the Rattlesnake Roundup. (Maybe that said it all.)

So you get to choose a topic:

  1. How to recognize and use rhetorical devices
  2. Common grammar mistakes and how to avoid them
  3. Pet peeves
  4. My latest food crushes
  5. My dissertation: What’s up with that?
  6. Newt Gingrich
  7. Why my children will be scarred for life
  8. The time I was sentenced to church
  9. Students, broken down by kind (an extension of this post)
  10. What I would do if I got Johnny Depp alone in a room

Your choice. Make a selection in the comments by Thursday, March 24, at midnight.

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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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Festival of frights

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , , , , on December 12, 2010| 2 Comments »

Just in time for Christmas, I offer you this gift of poorly executed signage.

The extra "e" gives it extra flavor, I bet.

Hmm ... La Guardia sign creators must not know the rule about using plural verbs with Latin plurals (although I grant that the rule is changing). (Photo courtesy of 36-hour Tina.)

Elizabeth sent this to me because I'm "special." I'm not sure if I should be offended.

Elizabeth also sent me this. I don't even know where to begin with this mistake medley. Make your own attempt in the comments section!

In addition to the seven exclamation points, this sign is frightening because it reveals that J.P. Morgan's entire fire alarm system hinges on this cord in this outlet. (Photo courtesy of 36-hour Tina.)

'Tis the season for extra apostrophes. (Image courtesy of Wigs -- er -- Lisa).

Happy holidays!

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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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Apostrophe catastrophe

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , on November 8, 2010| 5 Comments »

Loyal reader Tom requested — nay, commanded — that I return to the topic of grammar. Here’s his full note:

As you wish, Tom. How about a grammar subset?

Let’s talk about apostrophes, as they seem to be the bane of the existence of many.

Apostrophes have two major jobs: They show possession or they indicate that something is missing.

Job 1: Showing possession

Many of the signs featured on this blog show words with apostrophes where there shouldn’t be any. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the sign creators thought, “This looks boring. Let’s spice it up with something unnecessary and wrong.”

Maybe the sign creators at Goodwill just got confused:

The way it reads now makes me ask, “Goodwill salutes veteran’s WHAT? Ability to shop?” (I will not get into the various other atrocities on this sign, such as the use of “currently,” the misspelled word, and the incorrect abbreviation. Well, I guess I just did.) “Veteran’s Day” also is incorrect (should be “Veterans Day”), but I can understand the thought process behind that.

Remember: Use an apostrophe when you want to show that something belongs to someone. Think carefully about who is possessing what. For example, I could write that I belong to the PTO at Dominic’s school.

  • Is it a parent’s association? That would be a group belonging to one parent.
  • Is it a parents’ association? That would be a group belonging to two or more parents.
  • Is it a parents association? Yes, because it is a group made up of parents.

Job 2: Indicating missing characters

Contrary to popular belief, “It’s” is not the possessive for “it.” Only use “it’s” as the contraction for “it is” or “it has.” The possessive of “it” is “its”: The beast went back into its lair.

A common phrase in the South is “y’all.” Note the apostrophe. “Y’all” is a contraction for “you all.” The apostrophe indicates that “o” and “u” are missing.

 

The Oak Ridge Boys have written it correctly.

 

 

So has Toby Keith, but he has made a different mistake. Read on.

 

Similarly, if you want to talk about the 1980s, and you want to use an apostrophe to shorten it, you would write “’80s” because the “1” and the “9” are missing.

Toby Keith has abbreviated “shocking,” so he really needs an apostrophe before and after the “n” — similar to “rock ‘n’ roll.”

See how easy that is?

I realize that these rules don’t explain things like “won’t.” I can’t explain everything.

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Spellapalooza!

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , , , on September 22, 2010| 4 Comments »

It’s been a tough week for the South Bend public school system.

But that means it’s been a good week for me, the person who makes fun of errors in the wild.

Friends and students have shared plenty of tidbits from their travels over the past couple of weeks.

Royce found a new kind of crab:

Charlotte found pudding cake, but is still looking for a missing “r.”

And Austin found a sign for the grammar category. I guess I should be happy it is not spelled “yore.”

Sigh. Is it really that hard?

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Puffs aplenty

Posted in Random, tagged , , , on September 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

My friend/surrogate mother Jody came through again. And this time, it is with something I’ve never seen before:

Those, my friends, are regular-sized bags of my favorite snack food — not the snack-sized bags I’m used to seeing.

Oh my.

She said she also is on the lookout for these:

Oh my!

The bad thing is that I started my annual “eat healthy” kick this week. I’ll be limiting myself to only 13 puffs (four Weight Watchers points) every other day.

How will I survive?

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